Smuts 


Barbara  No  ratal 


LECTURES 


MODERN    HISTORY 


VOL.  I. 


LECTURES 

ON 

MODERN    HISTOEY, 

FROM 

THE  IRRUPTION  OF  THE  NORTHERN  NATIONS 

TO 

THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION. 


BY  WILLIAM   SMYTH, 

PROFESSOR   OF   MODERN   HISTORY    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY    OF   CAMBRIDGE. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 

VOL.  I. 


SECOND  AMERICAN,  FROM  THE  SECOND  LONDON  EDITION, 

WITH   A 

PREFACE,  LIST  OF  BOOKS  ON  AMERICAN  HISTORY, 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES,  £c., 
By  JARED   SPARKS,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 
PUBLISHED  BY  JOHN  OWEN. 

CHARLES  C.  LITTLE  fc  JAMES  BROWN,  AND  JAMES  MUNROE  &  CO.,  BOSTON; 

J.  &  H.  G.  LANGLEY,  AND  WILEY  &  PUTNAM,  NEW  YORK ;  THOMAS, 

COWPERTHWAIT,  &  CO.,  AND  CAREY  &  HART,  PHILADELPHIA  j 

GUSHING  to  BROTHER,   BALTIMORE. 

1843. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1845,  by 

JOHN    OWEN, 
in  the  Clerk's  office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


i,   EJr 


CAMBRIDGE* 
PRINTED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


ID  IOZ 


/  ( 

V, 
PREFACE 


TO 


THE   AMERICAN   EDITION. 


NOTHING  so  much  embarrasses  a  student,  who  is 
beginning  the  study  of  history,  as  the  difficulty  he 
finds  in  selecting  the  best  authors,  ascertaining  their 
intrinsic  and  relative  merits,  and  in  marking  out  for 
himself  the  most  profitable  course  of  reading.  He  is 
bewildered  amidst  a  multitude  of  books,  and  perpet- 
ually at  a  loss,  as  he  proceeds,  to  determine  the  com- 
parative importance  of  periods,  events,  and  charac- 
ters. If  he  seeks  a  guide,  he  is  either  met  by  a  dry 
catalogue  of  authors,  arranged  with  little  discrimina- 
tion, or  referred  to  abridgments  and  abstracts,  as 
destitute  of  the  soul  and  substance  of  history,  prop- 
erly so  called,  as  a  skeleton  is  of  the  spirit  and  pro- 
portions of  a  living  man.  His  time  is  thus  lost  and 
his  patience  exhausted,  while  he  makes  scarcely  any 
progress  in  those  acquisitions,  which  it  is  the  design 
of  history  to  communicate,  and  by  which  the  mind 
should  be  expanded  and  strengthened  at  the  same 
time  that  it  is  enriched  with  facts. 

Professor  Smyth  has  undertaken  to  remove  these  ob- 
stacles; and,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  manner  in  which 


M64O829 


vi  PREFACE  TO  THE 

his  task  has  been  executed  in  these  volumes,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  it  could  not  have  fallen  into  more  skilful  or 
experienced  hands.  His  object  is  to  teach  students, 
and  readers  generally,  how  to  read  history  for  them- 
selves ;  to  show  them  the  path,  and  furnish  them  the 
best  lights  for  pursuing  it ;  to  enable  them  to  form 
a  just  estimate  of  the  principal  authors,  and  to  bring 
forward  in  bold  relief  those  prominent  parts  of  his- 
tory, to  wThich  their  attention  should  chiefly  be  di- 
rected. His  plan  is  unfolded  with  clearness  and  pre- 
cision in  his  Introductory  Lecture.  It  is  broad  and 
comprehensive,  and  such  as  could  not  have  been  car- 
ried out,  in  the  finished  manner  it  has  been,  without 
a  critical  examination  of  a  large  number  of  authors, 
and  close  and  patient  meditation  upon  the  contents 
of  their  works.  There  is  nothing  superficial  or  ill 
digested  ;  nothing  taken  at  second  hand ;  the  lec- 
turer's mind  is  brought  to  bear,  with  its  own  original 
vigor,  upon  all  the  subjects  that  come  under  his 
notice ;  his  opinions  are  frankly  and  fearlessly  ex- 
pressed, and  sustained  by  a  force  of  reasoning,  which 
rarely  fails  to  produce  conviction,  never  to  inspire 
respect  and  confidence. 

He  adopts  a  method  at  once  perspicuous  and  well 
suited  to  the  end  he  has  in  view.  He  selects  certain 
periods  of  history,  and  groups  together  the  great 
events  in  each,  investigating  their  relation  to  each 
other  in  the  order  of  cause  and  effect,  and  their  re- 
sults on  the  civil  and  political  condition  of  states  and 
communities  ;  preserving,  as  he  advances,  an  easy 
and  natural  transition  from  one  period  to  another. 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  vii 

This  method  affords  occasion  for  philosophical  re- 
flections, in  which  the  author  is  profound  and  saga- 
cious, without  any  of  the  vague  generalization  and 
speculative  theories,  which  too  much  abound  in 
works  assuming  the  title  of  philosophical  history. 
Professor  Smyth's  philosophy  is  of  that  rational  kind, 
which  builds  itself  on  established  principles  and 
truths,  and  in  which  he  has  so  much  respect  for  the 
good  sense  of  his  readers,  that  he  is  willing  to  ad- 
dress himself  to  their  understanding.  He  betrays  no 
affection  for  that  spurious  philosophy,  which  disdains 
the  wisdom  of  experience,  which  finds  truth  only  in 
novelties,  and  substitutes  the  dreams  of  the  imagina- 
tion for  the  dictates  of  a  sound  judgment,  soaring 
above  or  sinking  below  the  comprehension  of  ordi- 
nary minds.  He  looks  deeply  into  the  workings  of 
the  human  heart,  and  studies  the  passions  of  men 
as  they  have  been  implanted  in  their  nature  and  ex- 
hibited on  the  great  theatre  of  human  action,  tracing 
out  their  influence  in  moulding  the  structure  of  so- 
ciety, in  raising  up  nations  to  power  and  glory,  or 
bringing  them  down  to  degradation  and  ruin  ;  thus 
deducing  lessons  of  practical  application  and  utility. 

He  never  forgets  that  the  legitimate  use  of  his- 
tory, as  a  study,  is  to  teach  by  examples.  Like 
the  inductive  philosophy  in  science,  the  instruction 
sought  from  history  proceeds  from  known  facts  to 
general  results.  History  itself  is  a  record  of  a  series 
of  experiments,  which  men  have  tried  for  the  pur- 
pose of  promoting  their  well-being  and  happiness  in 
a  social  state.  Some  of  these  experiments  have  sue- 


viii  PREFACE  TO  THE 

ceeded,  others  have  failed,  but  the  lessons  in  each 
case  are  valuable  as  showing  either  what  is  to  be 
imitated  or  avoided.  To  explain  and  enforce  these 
lessons,  drawn  from  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
progress  of  nations  in  political  science,  and  of  men 
in  attaining  civil  liberty  and  a  free  enjoyment  of  their 
rights  under  different  forms  of  government,  consti- 
tutes the  most  useful  element  of  the  philosophy  of 
history  ;  and  in  this  part  of  his  subject  no  writer  has 
been  more  successful  than  Professor  Smyth,  whether 
we  regard  the  extent  of  his  inquiries,  the  solidity  and 
directness  of  his  opinions,  or  his  felicitous  manner  of 
representing  them. 

His  plan  restricts  him  to  a  general  survey,  with- 
out the  detail  of  narrative,  or  elaborate  discussions 
of  complicated  and  doubtful  questions,  which,  how- 
ever necessary  they  may  sometimes  be  in  a  regular 
historical  composition,  are  frequently  more  cumber- 
some than  convincing,  more  tedious  than  instructive. 
His  work  embraces  Modern  History.  As  prepara- 
tory to  his  main  subjeqt,  he  touches  upon  the  period 
immediately  following  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  ;  the  laws,  customs,  and  political  state  of  the 
barbarous  nations  of  Europe  ;  the  principal  features 
of  the  Mahometan  religion,  and  the  remarkable 
events  of  the  Dark  Ages.  In  this  outline  he  con- 
fines himself  to  such  particulars,  as  mark  the  progress 
of  civilization  and  open  the  way  to  the  political  or- 
ganizations of  modern  Europe,  and  as  explain  the 
causes  of  those  vast  changes  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  which  have  taken  place  within  the  last  three 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  ix 

hundred  years.  These  changes  and  their  conse- 
quences are  made  the  theme  of  his  subsequent  lec- 
tures. Proceeding  in  the  same  spirit  of  philosophi- 
cal analysis,  seizing  upon  the  prominent  events  and 
pursuing  them  in  their  natural  course,  and  through 
their  intricate  combinations,  he  examines  under  sep- 
arate heads  the  history  of  the  European  nations. 
Yet  the  periods  and  the  states,  which  pass  in  review 
before  him,  are  not  considered  as  detached  from  each 
other,  but  as  parts  of  a  general  system,  having  their 
distinctive  relations  and  uniting  to  constitute  a  whole. 

A  large  portion  of  the  work  is  devoted  to  England; 
the  origin  of  the  British  constitution,  the  vicissitudes 
it  has  undergone,  the  dangers  it  has  encountered,  the 
obstacles  it  has  overcome,  and  the  means  by  which 
it  has  advanced  to  be  the  consolidating  principle  of  an 
empire  vast  in  territory  and  power.  The  great  strug- 
gle, which  long  existed  between  the  prerogative  and 
popular  claims,  before  the  balance  was  duly  adjust- 
ed by  securing  the  weight  of  an  efficient  Parliament, 
is  fully  investigated  and  clearly  explained.  The  char- 
acters of  British  statesmen,  and  their  influence  on 
the  history  of  their  country  and  the  growth  of  its  in- 
stitutions, are  likewise  discussed  with  a  freedom  and 
ability,  which  clothe  the  author's  remarks  on  these 
subjects  with  peculiar  interest.  Nor  does  he  speak 
of  the  eminent  men  of  other  countries  with  less  can- 
dor or  discrimination,  assigning  to  all  their  just  meed 
of  praise  or  censure,  according  as  they  have  been  the 
benefactors  of  their  race,  ambitious  demagogues,  or 
the  tools  of  despotism. 

VOL.  i.  b 


x  PREFACE  TO  THE 

Other  characteristics  of  these  volumes  demand 
high  commendation.  No  writer  could  be  more  im- 
partial ;  his  sentiments  are  generous  and  liberal ;  he 
is  never  the  blind  advocate  of  a  party,  nor  the  de- 
fender of  tortuous  measures  ;  his  zeal  for  favorite 
opinions,  and  for  men  whose  policy  he  approves  and 
whose  talents  he  extols,  is  always  tempered  with 
moderation  and  judgment.  He  does  not,  like  too 
many  historians,  pass  sentence  on  motives,  which  he 
has  only  conjectured,  and  condemn  conduct  merely 
because  he  cannot  discover  all  the  reasons  by  which 
it  has  been  prompted.  He  is  neither  the  champion 
of  a  school,  nor  the  slave  of  a  theory ;  he  never 
talks  of  optimism  or  of  perfectibility  ;  he  takes  facts 
as  they  are  presented  to  him,  analyses,  combines, 
and  compares  them  without  bias  or  predilection,  and 
establishes  his  conclusions  on  the  basis  of  truth  and 
justice. 

In  remarking  on  forms  of  government,  and  the  acts 
of  princes,  statesmen,  and  military  leaders,  he  is 
equally  free,  on  the  one  hand,  from  the  narrow  preju- 
dice and  illiberal  invective,  and,  on  the  other,  from 
the  indiscriminate  admiration  and  applause,  in  which 
writers  of  less  compass  of  thought,  and  less  acute- 
ness  of  observation,  are  apt  to  indulge.  He  con- 
siders the  government  best  for  a  people,  which,  when 
well  administered,  is  best  suited  to  their  circum- 
stances, and  best  fitted  for  securing  the  prosperity 
of  individuals  and  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the 
public.  While  he  sternly  rebukes  all  symptoms  of 
despotism,  all  abuses  of  power,  all  encroachments 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  xi 

upon  rights,  wherever  they  appear,  he  is  not  bound 
to  a  system,  nor  slow  to  discern  the  advantages 
which  every  system  may  possess,  nor  reluctant  to  be- 
stow praise  where  it  is  due.  Although  friendly  to 
reform,  because  society  is  progressive,  gathering  in- 
telligence as  it  advances  and  wisdom  from  the  ex- 
perience of  the  past,  yet  he  would  correct  errors 
gradually  and  with  caution,  rather  than  eradicate 
them  by  violence ;  he  would  repair,  strengthen,  and 
adorn  the  edifice,  rather  than  undermine  its  founda- 
tions and  triumph  over  its  ruins.  Systems  of  gov- 
ernment have  grown  up  with  time,  till  they  have 
become  rooted  in  the  habits,  usages,  customs,  and 
often  the  affections  of  the  people ;  to  destroy  the 
former  would  be  to  derange  the  latter,  and  to  pro- 
duce misery  instead  of  happiness.  Innovation  is  not 
always  improvement ;  change  may  be  for  the  worse, 
and  is  likely  to  be  so  when  ill-timed  or  rashly  di- 
rected. Revolution  is  an  extreme  remedy;  it  may 
break  the  chains  of  oppression  or  rivet  them  more 
strongly,  according  as  it  proceeds  from  just  causes 
and  is  guided  by  prudence,  or  as  it  arises  from  fac- 
tious discontent  and  is  pushed  forward  by  a  reckless 
disregard  of  consequences.  There  are  evils  in  all 
systems,  there  is  good  in  all ;  to  correct  the  one 
and  retain  the  other,  to  infuse  into  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  a  state  the  spirit  of  each  succeeding  age, 
and  to  adapt  them  to  the  increasing  intelligence  and 
wants  of  society,  should  be  the  policy  as  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  statesman  and  legislator. 

Professor  Smyth's  judicious  estimate  of  the  char- 


xii  PREFACE  TO  THE 

acters  of  men,  his  liberal  construction  of  their  mo- 
tives, and  his  indulgence  to  the  infirmities  of  their 
nature,  are  not  confined  to  his  political  views.  His 
benevolence  rises  to  the  higher  virtue  of  toleration. 
Religion  has  been  a  powerful  agent  in  modern  civil- 
ization. He  weighs  with  an  impartial  hand  the  im- 
pelling forces,  which  have  sprung  from  this  source, 
and  assigns  them  to  their  appropriate  spheres.  The 
enlargement  of  mind,  equanimity  of  temper,  and 
bland  moderation,  which  characterize  his  political 
investigations,  are  equally  conspicuous  here.  He 
neither  assails  modes  of  faith,  nor  arraigns  the  con- 
science which  adopts  them,  nor  condemns  whole  or- 
ders of  men  because  they  have  exercised  the  privi- 
lege of  thinking  for  themselves.  He  makes  no  terms 
with  despotism  seeking  to  disguise  itself  under  the 
garb  of  religion,  or  ecclesiastical  domination  grasp- 
ing at  secular  power,  or  the  superstition  which  de- 
ludes men  into  follies  and  chains  them  in  ignorance, 
or  the  fanaticism  which  breeds  disorders  and  degen- 
erates into  crime ;  but  he  has  a  wide  mantle  of  char- 
ity for  all,  who  show  the  sincerity  of  their  belief  by 
the  calm  and  steady  zeal  with  which  they  adhere  to 
it,  and  by  its  benign  influence  on  their  lives  as  mem- 
bers of  society  and  practical  Christians.  Even  sec- 
tarian extravagance  he  can  tolerate,  when  it  avoids 
persecution,  clothes  itself  with  humility,  and  strives 
to  promote  peace  and  concord.  He  is  no  dogmatist 
himself,  nor  an  approver  of  dogmatism  in  others, 
however  it  may  shield  itself  under  the  imposing 
name  of  church  or  state.  On  the  freedom  of  opin- 


AMERICAN  EDITION.       .  xiii 

ion  and  speech,  which  is  the  birthright  of  every  be- 
ing who  can  think  and  talk,  he  would  lay  no  other 
restraints  than  are  required  by  public  order  and  the 
security  of  individuals.  In  short,  although  firm  in 
his  own  sentiments,  both  in  politics  and  religion, 
and  maintaining  them  when  occasions  offer,  yet  his 
convictions  neither  harden  his  heart  nor  pervert  his 
understanding  ;  they  do  not  check  the  current  of  his 
kind  feelings,  or  darken  his  perceptions,  or  mislead 
his  judgment. 

These  lectures  were  composed  for  young  men,  but 
they  furnish  nutriment  for  minds  in  every  stage  of 
culture.  It  is  not  one  of  their  least  merits,  that  they 
incite  the  reader  to  reflection,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  supply  him  with  materials  and  encourage  him 
by  examples.  This  is  an  important  use  of  history, 
which  Professor  Smyth  turns  to  its  best  account.  A 
mere  knowledge  of  facts  is  only  the  first  rudiment  of 
instruction ;  an  effort  of  memory  and  nothing  more. 
This  knowledge  is  necessary  in  studying  history,  but 
he  who  proceeds  no  further  has  scarcely  entered  the 
vestibule.  Facts  are  the  germs  of  profitable  knowl- 
edge, which  the  mind  must  nurture  and  cherish,  or 
they  will  decay  and  die.  In  themselves  they  are 
single  and  loosely  connected,  forming  a  chain  whose 
links  are  perpetually  falling  asunder.  Let  them  be 
employed  for  their  legitimate  purposes  while  fresh 
and  strong ;  let  the  reader  seize  their  fleeting  spirit 
and  incorporate  it  with  his  thoughts  ;  let  him  compare 
and  combine,  reflect  and  draw  conclusions,  till  im- 
pressions are  stamped  that  will  become  part  of  him- 


liv  .         PREFACE  TO  THE 

self.  No  branch  of  study  calls  more  loudly  for  this 
kind  of  meditation  than  that  of  history,  where  the 
transactions  of  men  under  all  imaginable  circum- 
stances are  laid  open,  where  the  passions  are  ever  at 
work,  and  where  the  economy  of  life  is  seen  in  all 
its  phases  and  vicissitudes. 

Another  feature  of  this  work  remains  to  be  men- 
tioned, which  contributes  greatly  to  enhance  its  value. 

The  reader  is  not  only  taught  how  to  read  history, 
and  what  use  to  make  of  it,  but  he  is  at  the  same 
time  furnished  with  the  best  guides.  The  principal 
authors,  both  in  the  English  and  French  languages, 
are  brought  before  him,  with  such  criticisms  and  ex- 
planations as  enable  him  to  understand  their  design, 
character,  comparative  merits,  and  the  particular  pe- 
riods or  subjects  to  which  they  relate.  Aware  of  the 
importance  of  this  part  of  his  plan,  the  lecturer  has 
bestowed  upon  it  special  attention,  and  has  thus 
rendered  an  invaluable  service  to  all  readers  of  his- 
tory, who  would  employ  their  time  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage, and  derive  instruction  from  the  highest 
sources.  He  distinguishes  books  that  are  only  to 
be  consulted  from  those  which  are  to  be  carefully 
perused,  and,  in  referring  to  voluminous  works,  he 
often  recommends  parts  and  even  single  chapters, 
thereby  relieving  the  student  from  the  fruitless  toil 
he  would  otherwise  encounter  in  attempting  to  select 
and  judge  for  himself.  As  a  critic,  his  discernment 
is  quick,  his  decisions  fair  and  judicious.  His  re- 
marks on  the  characteristics  of  Hume  as  an  histo- 
rian, and  on  the  style  of  Gibbon,  are  examples  in 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  xv 

point.     His  own  style   is  perspicuous  and    forcible, 
without  elaborate  ornament  or  studied  diction. 

But  the  portion  of  the  work,  which  will  be  most 
likely  to  interest  readers  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
is  the  last  six  lectures,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the 
American  Revolution.  No  British  writer  has  treated 
this  subject  with  so  much  candor,  or  such  perfect 
freedom  from  party  feelings  and  national  prejudice  ; 
and  it  may  at  least  be  doubted,  if  any  American 
writer  can  claim,  on  this  score,  a  higher  degree 
of  confidence.  The  fault  of  ignorance,  so  justly  as- 
cribed to  almost  all  the  writers  in  England,  who  have 
touched  on  that  event,  cannot  be  laid  to  the  charge 
of  Professor  Smyth.  He  has  examined  the  American 
side  with  no  less  diligence  than  the  English.  He 
has  drawn  from  original  fountains,  consulted  public 
documents,  and  taken  as  his  guides  Washington's  of- 
ficial letters,  Marshall,  and  Ramsay,  whose  authority 
he  respects  and  in  whose  representations  he  confides. 
The  causes  of  the  controversy  are  briefly  stated. 
Without  laboring  to  decide  whether  these  causes  jus- 
tified the  measures  of  the  British  ministry  in  strict- 
ness of  law  and  constitutional  right,  he  allows,  what 
is  now  assented  to  by  all  the  world,  that  both  min- 
isters and  people  suffered  themselves  to  be  led  astray 
by  a  mistaken  policy  in  the  first  instance,  and  by 
national  pride  to  the  end  of  the  contest.  Mild  gov- 
ernment is  a  maxim,  which  Professor  Smyth  inculcates 
throughout  his  lectures,  and  which  he  especially  ur- 
ges upon  every  sovereign  power  in  regard  to  its  colo- 
nies or  dependent  states.  This  maxim  is  strikingly 


xvi  PREFACE  TO  THE 

illustrated  by  the  parallel  he  draws  between  the 
Netherlands,  shaking  off  the  joke  of  Spain,  and  the 
American  colonies,  asserting  and  maintaining  their  in- 
dependence. The  pride  of  Spain  was  tyrannical,  and 
she  lost  the  Netherlands  ;  the  pride  of  England  was 
blind  and  obstinate,  and  she  lost  her  colonies.  A  lit- 
tle yielding  to  circumstances  would  have  saved  both. 
It  was  easy  to  cry  out  faction,  treason,  and  rebellion, 
and  thus  to  kindle  irritation  on  one  side  and  a  ran- 
corous spirit  on  the  other,  till  the  breach  was  past 
healing ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  conquer  a  people 
borne  down  by  wrongs,  which  they  were  determined 
to  redress.  Their  hearts  might  have  been  subdued 
and  their  affections  won,  not  by  coercion  and  harsh- 
ness, but  by  mild  treatment  and  a  due  regard  to  their 
rights.  This  truth,  deduced  from  the  two  cases  in 
question,  is  confirmed  by  so  many  examples  in  his- 
tory, that  rulers  might  long  ago  have  learned  from  it 
a  practical  lesson  of  policy  and  interest,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  wisdom  and  duty. 

The  conduct  of  both  parties  in  carrying  on  the 
American  war  is  freely  canvassed  by  the  author.  He 
finds  little  to  praise  in  the  British  counsels,  and 
some  things  to  blame  in  those  of  the  Americans. 
He  wonders,  and  rightly  enough,  that  there  should 
be  so  much  patriotism  in  passing  resolves  and  pub- 
lishing addresses,  and  so  little  in  paying  taxes  and 
furnishing  supplies  for  the  army.  He  is  surprised  at 
the  readiness  to  contract  debts  for  the  public  benefit, 
and  at  the  reluctance  to  recognise  and  provide  for  them. 
The  soldiers,  who  had  fought  the  battles  and  secured 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  xvii 

the  freedom  of  their  country,  were  dismissed  and 
sent  home  without  even  a  promise  that  they  should 
be  paid.  But  he  justly  accounts  for  these  inconsis- 
tencies, and  some  others,  by  the  weakness  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power.  Congress  could  debate,  resolve,  and 
recommend,  and  here  their  functions  ended.  As  an 
executive  body  they  were  feeble,  in  fact  powerless,  in 
regard  to  the  most  important  objects  of  government. 
Nevertheless,  it  argues  much  for  the  virtue  of  a  peo- 
ple, that  they  could  sustain  a  war  for  so  long  a  time 
under  such  a  system.  It  argues  more ;  it  proves  the 
strength  of  principle  with  which  they  were  united, 
and  a  deep-rooted  conviction  of  the  justice  of  their 
cause,  that  they  could  be  roused  to  such  efforts  and 
sacrifices  through  years  of  conflict,  privation,  and 
suffering. 

The  American   patriots  were  not  merely  lovers  of 
their  country,  they  were  lovers   of  mankind.     Their 
ideas  of  liberty  were  not  those  of  license  or  insubordi- 
nation ;  nor  did  they  regard  this  liberty  as  a  convention- 
al privilege,  which  a  supreme  power,  however  organ- 
ized, might  grant  or  withhold  at  its  option.     They  be- 
lieved it  to  be  an  element  in  the  constitution  of  man, 
which  he  has   a  right  to  claim  arid  exercise  for  his 
own  well-being.     Men  may  agree  how  they  will  ex- 
ercise it  for  the  good  of  each  other  and  of  the  whole. 
The  old  governments  of  Europe  have  turned  it  to  the 
advantage   of  a  few  at   the   expense   of  the    many. 
Liberty  with   them  is  fidelity  to  existing  establish- 
ments.   This   may  be  all  that  the   people  desire,  or 
all  that  they  can  bear,  in  the  present  state  of  things. 
VOL.  i.  c 


xviii  PREFACE  TO  THE 

The  Americans  found  themselves  in  a  condition  to 
enjoy  more ;  they  had  increased  in  numbers  and 
grown  strong  on  the  soil  of  freedom  ;  their  habits 
of  thought  and  of  action  had  partaken  of  its  spirit ; 
and,  when  they  perceived  the  coils  of  a  distant  and 
irresponsible  power  gradually  drawn  tighter  and  tight- 
er around  them,  it  was  natural  that  they  should 
struggle  to  release  themselves,  and  provide  for  their 
future  independence  and  safety. 

It  is  not  inferred  that  Professor  Smyth  would  agree 
to  these  sentiments  in  their  full  latitude.  He  thinks 
the  British  system,  with  its  nicely  balanced  checks 
of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  on  the  whole  better 
adapted  to  the  growth  and  durability  of  a  great  pow- 
er, and  to  the  preservation  of  the  people's  liberties, 
than  any  that  has  yet  been  tried.  But  he  is  not  an 
enemy  to  republics  when  placed  on  their  proper  foot- 
ing ;  and  he  would  have  the  experiment  fairly  car- 
ried out  in  America,  especially  as  it  has  commenced 
under  auspices  entirely  different  from  those,  which 
have  proved  abortive  in  the  old  world.  At  all  events, 
he  is  entitled  to  the  thanks  of  Americans  for  the 
pains  he  has  bestowed  in  describing  their  contest 
for  liberty,  and  the  impartiality  and  generous  spirit 
with  which  he  has  accomplished  what  he  has  under- 
taken. If  errors  can  be  discovered,  they  are  not 
those  of  negligence,  a  narrow  mind,  or  a  biassed 
judgment.  His  character  of  Washington,  sketched 
near  the  end  of  his  work,  is  happily  conceived  and 
well  delineated.  In  short,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  any  treatise  on  the  American  Revolution,  com- 


AMERICAN  EDITION.  xix 

prised  within  the  compass  of  his  six  lectures,  from 
which  so  much  can  be  learned,  or  so  accurate  an  es- 
timate of  the  merits  of  both  sides  of  the  question 

can  be  formed. 

J.  S. 

CAMBRIDGE,  OCTOBER  6th,  1841. 


TO    HENRY,   MARaUIS    OF 
LANSDOWNE. 

MY    LORD, 

You  have  been  always  distinguished  for  your  sympa- 
thy with  the  welfare  of  your  fellow-creatures,  of  whatever 
country ;  for  your  ready  patronage  of  every  art,  science, 
or  institution,  contributing  to  the  embellishment,  or  ad- 
vancing the  interests  of  the  community ;  for  welcoming 
to  the  hospitality  of  your  splendid  mansion,  every  man, 
whether  native  or  foreigner,  who  could  be  supposed  to 
have  any  merit  deserving  of  your  attention  ;  it  has  there- 
fore been  always  a  source  of  pride  to  me,  to  have  owed 
my  Professorship  to  your  Lordship's  favorable  opinion ; 
and  these  Lectures,  the  result  of  my  appointment,  are 
now  dedicated  to  your  Lordship,  with  every  sentiment  of 
affection,  gratitude,  and  respect. 


WILLIAM   SMYTH. 


St.  Peter's  College,  Cambridge, 
Nov.  1839. 


VOL,  1. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 

THE  following  Lectures  were  drawn  up  to  be  delivered 
to  a  youthful  audience,  at  an  English  University,  volun- 
tarily assembled. 

The  Reader  is  requested  never  to  lose  sight  of  this 
particular  circumstance,  —  they  were  to  be  listened  to, 
not  read  ;  they  are  now  published  in  the  hope  that  they 
may  be  useful  to  others,  at  a  similar  period  of  life. 

Minute  historical  disquisition  or  research  cannot  be  ex- 
pected in  compositions  of  this  nature :  what  the  author 
has  hoped  to  accomplish  will  be  found  explained  in  the 
Introductory  Lecture ;  and  the  maxim  of  the  poet  seems 
but  equitable, — 

"  In  every  work  regard  the  writer's  end, 
Since  none  can  compass  more  than  they  intend." 


CONTENTS. 

VOL.   I. 
LIST  OF  BOOKS  RECOMMENDED. 

PAGE 

Introductory  Lecture       .  .  .  .  .  .  1 

Lecture  I.     Barbarians  and  Romans  .  .  .  .25 

II.    Laws  of  the  Barbarians        ....          41 

III.  Mahomet.  —  Progress  of  Society,  &c.  .  .    63 

IV.  The  Dark  Ages 87 

V.     England 115 

VI.     England 142 

VII.    France 175 

VIII.  Spain,  Germany,  Italy,  Switzerland             .            .        202 

IX.  Reformation       .            .            .            .            .            .222 

X.  Reformation              .....        241 

XL  France.— Civil  and  Religious  Wars    .            .            .275 

XII.  Henry  the  Fourth  and  the  Low  Countries  .            .        298 

XIII.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  .            .            .            .323 

XIV.  Henry  the  Eighth.  —  Elizabeth.  —  James  the  First.  — 

Charles  the  First  .  .  .  .344 

XV.     Charles  the  First 372 

XVI.    Civil  War 392 

XVII.     Cromwell.  — Monk.  — Regicides          .  ,  .412 


LIST    OF    BOOKS 

RECOMMENDED  AND   REFERRED   TO   IN  THE  LECTURES 
ON  MODERN  HISTORY. 


THE  shortest  Course  of  Historical  Reading,  that  can  be  proposed,  seems 
to  be  the  following  : 

(1.)  Three  first  chapters  of  GibSon  ;  and  the  9th  for  the  Romans  and  Bar- 
barians, &c. ;  the  chapters  about  Mahomet  and  his  followers. 

Butler  on  the  German  Constitution,  the  subjects  there  mentioned  to  be 
followed  up  in  Gibbon. 

(2.)  Renault's,  or  Millot's  Abridgment  of  the  History  of  France  ;  or  the 
History  of  France,  lately  published  by  D'Anquetil  (not  the  Universal  His- 
tory,) in  14  small  8vo.  volumes ;  with  the  Observations  sur  1'Histoire  de 
France,  by  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  a  book  quite  invaluable. 

Voltaire's  Louis  XIV.  &c.,  &c.,  and  Charles  XII.  with  the  Memoirs  of 
Duclos 

(3.)  Robertson's  Historical  Works,  with  most  of  Coxe's  House  of  Austria, 
and  Watson's  Philip  the  Second. 

(4.)  Hume  and  Millar. 

Parts  of  Laing's  Scotland  ;  Leland's  Ireland. 

Burke's  European  Settlements, —  Belsham  and  Adolphus  (neither  without 
the  other),  —  Historical  Parts  of  Annual  Register.  (5.) 

(1.)  To  these  may  be  added  (to  make  a  Second  Course) ; 

Koch  ou  the  Middle  Ages,  an  excellent  book  5  and  Butler's  Horee  Juridicze,  for  dif- 
ferent codes  of  law,  &c. 

(2.)  To  these  may  be  added} 

Wraxall's  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Valois,  and  Wraxall's  History  of  France. 

(3.)  To  these  may  be  added  ; 

Harte's  Gustavus  A-dolphus, —  parts  of  Roscoe's  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  and  more 
particularly  parts  of  his  Leo  the  Tenth  j  with  Planta'"s  Helvetic  Confederacy. 

(4.)  To  these  may  be  added; 

Much  of  Rapin,  particularly  from  the  death  of  Richard  the  Third. 

Parts  of  Clarendon,  and  Burnet's  History  of  his  own  Times. 

Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History,  to  be  read  in  a  general  manner  with  Hume. 

Macpherson's  and  Dalrymple's  Original  Papers,  with  Fox's  History  of  James  the 
Second,  and  the  Appendix. 

(5.)  To  these  may  be  added  ; 

Lacretelle's  Histoire  de  France  pendant  le  XVIII.  Siecle,  afterwards  his  Precis 
Historique  de  la  Revolution  Francaise. 

To  all  these  may  again  be  added  (to  make  a  Third  Course) ; 

Parts  of  Pfeffel,  a  book  of  great  authority,  —  and  of  Sale's  Koran,  —  Mosheim,  — 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

Russell's  Modern  Europe  may  supply  the  rest;  and  the  volumes  of  the 
Modern  Universal  History  may  be  referred  to,  for  accounts  of  every  state 
and  kingdom  ;  the  best  authors  are  mentioned  in  their  margins. 

Priestley's  Lectures  should  be  looked  at  for  the  Nature  of  Historical  Author- 
ities, &c.,  &c. 

For  Chronology  there  is  a  great  French  work,  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Dates. 

Dufresnoy  may  be  met  with  easily. 

This  appears  to  be  the  shortest  course  of  Historical  Reading  that  can  be 
proposed. 

But  Adam  Smith  should  also  be  studied,  and  the  work  of  Mr.  Malthus, 
with  the  works  in  morals  and  metaphysics. 

Of  Statesmen  and  Legislators,  History  and  Political  Economy  are  the  pro- 
fessional studies,  and  are  never  to  cease. 

The  Books  referred  to  in  the  Lectures,  down  to  the  end  of  the  American 
War,  were  the  following: 

Caesar,  —  Tacitus  (de  Mor.  Ger.),  for  Romans  and  Barbarians;  with  the 
three  first  chapter  of  Gibbon,  and  the  9th.  —  Lindenbrogius,  for  Barbarian 
Codes  ;  Salique  Code  to  be  read,  —  Baluze,  for  Capitularies,  —  Butler  on 
the  German  Constitution,  —  Ditto  Horoe  Juridicae,  —  Rankin's  History  of 
France,  to  be  looked  at,  —  Gregory  of  Tours  in  Duchesne,  —  Renault's 
Abridgment  of  the  History  of  France, —  Millot's  ditto, —  D'Anquetil's  His- 
tory of  France,  —  Abbe  de  Mably's  Observations,  &c.,  —  Pfeffel,  for  German 
History, —  Stuart's  View  of  Society,  —  Koch  on  the  Middle  Ages,  of  which 
the  last  edition  in  1807  is  the  best. 

In  the  Middle  ages  the  leading  points  are : 

1st.  Clovis  (see  Gibbon).  2nd.  Pepin  (see  Montesquieu).  3rd.  Charle- 
magne (Latin  Life  of,  by  Eginhart).  4th.  Elective  nature  of  the  crown  in 
Germany,  and  hereditary  in  France  (PfetTel  and  Mably).  5th.  Temporal 
Power  of  the  Popes  (Butler,  —  Koch, —  Gibbon,  49th  chap.)  6th.  Feudal 
System.  Montesquieu  (but  more  particularly  Mably,  Robertson,  Millar,  and 
Stuart's  View  of  Society).  7th.  Chivalry.  St.  Palaye  (his  work  to  be  found 
in  the  20th  volume  of  Memoires  de  1'Academie).  8th.  Popes  and  Emper- 
ors (Gibbon,  Koch,  Giannone,  5th  chap.  19th  book).  9th.  Hanseatic  League, 
«fec.  (Pfeffel.)  And  lUth.  the  Crusades  (Gibbon). 

MAHOMET. 

SALE'S  Koran,  —  Preface  of,  and  Preliminary  Dissertation,  with  a  few 
chapters  of  the  Koran  itself. 

Prideaux's  Life  of  Mahomet  is  not  long,  but  seems  not  very  good. 

The  Modern  Universal  History  may  be  looked  at,  —  50th  chap.  &c.  of 
Gibbon, —  White's  Bampton  Lectures,  —  Ockley's  History  of  the  Saracens, 
to  be  looked  at. 

Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans, —  Fox's  Martyrs.     And  also  Burnet's  History  of  the 
Reformation,  —  Ludlow, —  Life  of  Colonel  Hulchinson, —  Whitelocke. 

Harris's  Lives  of  the  Stuarts,  &c.  &c.  will  be  found  full  of  information,  and  Somer- 
ville's  History  of  William  and  Anne  should  be  read,  with  Coxe's  Sir  Robert  Wai- 
pole. 


LIST    OF  BOOKS. 

FRENCH  HISTORY. 

RENAULT  and  Millot,  and  D'Anquetil's  History  to  be  read,  and  important 
subjects  to  be  further  considered  in  the  great  historians,  —  Velly,  —  Pere 
Daniel,  — but  Velly  recommended,  a  work  of  great  detail  and  value,  contin- 
ued by  Villaret,  and  afterwards  by  Gamier,  but  not  yet  half  finished. 

Robertson's  Charles  the  Fifth,  Introduction  of,  — Smith's  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions ;  the  chapters  in  the  3rd  book,  on  progress  of  Towns,  &c.,  will  give 
the  student  an  idea  of  the  progress  of  society  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

ENGLISH   HISTORY. 

TACITUS'  Agricola,  —  Suetonius,  —  Wilkins  on  Saxon  Laws,  —  Hume's 
Appendix, —  Millar  on  the  English  Constitution,  —  Nicholson's  Historical 
Library,  —  Priestley's  Lectures  on  History,  —  Delolme  and  Blackstone, — 
Blackstone  on  the  Charters  to  be  read,  —  Sullivan's  Law  Lectures,  close  of, 
for  his  Observations  on  Magna  Charta, —  Monkish  Historians  by  Tvvysden, 
Camden,  —  Gale,  &c.  —  Lingard. 

SPANISH  HISTORY. 

FOR  the  Moors,  &c.  in  Spain,  see  Gibbon,  chapters  in  5th  vol.  4to.  51,  52, 
and  a  late  Work  by  Murphy,  —  Mariana,  the  great  historian,  of  whom  there 
is  a  character  in  Gibbon,  and  a  translation  by  Stevens ;  but  the  16th  and 
J7th  vols.  of  the  Modern  History  may  be  looked  at,  along  with  Mr.  Gibbon's 
Outlines  in  the  second  volume  of  his  Memoirs,  —  Robertson's  Introduction 
to  Charles  the  Fifth,  — then  his  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  Watson's  Philip  the 
Second,  —  Pfeffel  from  Rodolph  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  may  be  looked  at,  and 
Coxe's  House  of  Austria,  with  Planta's  History,  for  the  rise  of  the  House  of 
Austria,  the  Swiss  Cantons  and  Helvetic  Confederacy  ;  and  for  Italy  and 
the  Popes,  the  69th  and  70th  chapters  of  Gibbon  will  be  sufficient. 

FRENCH  HISTORY   TO   LOUIS  THE  TWELFTH. 
ABBE  DE  MABLY,  —  Robertson's  Introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  and 
three  Notes,  38,  39,  40,  —  Parts  of  Philip  de  Commines,  for  Burgundy  and 
Life  of  Louis  the  Eleventh, —  Notices  taken  by  Hume  of  the  French  history. 

ENGLISH  HISTORY  TO  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH. 
HUME'S  Reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  pages  490  and  491,  8vo.  edit,  com- 
pared with  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records, —  Cobbett's  Parliamentary 
History,  —  Henry's  History  may  be  looked  at,  when  Cotton,  Brady,  Tyrrell, 
Carte,  cannot  be  consulted,  —  Bacon's  Life  of  Henry  the  Seventh, — Monk- 
ish Historians, —  Sir  J.  Hay  ward,  —  Lingard. 

REVIVAL  OF  LEARNING,   &c.  -  REFORMATION. 

INTRODUCTION  to  the  Literary  History  of  the  14th  and  15th  Centuries 
(Cadell,  17C8),  worth  looking  at,  and  not  long,  —  Mosheim's  State  of  Learn- 
ing in  the  I3thand  14th  Centuries, —  Gibbon,  chapters  53  and  66,  —  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici,  parts  of,  —  and  more  particularly  of  Leo  the  Tenth,  by  Roscoe, 
—  Read  the  accounts  of  the  Reformation,  1st,  in  Robertson's  Charles  the 
Fifth ;  2nd,  History  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  in  Coxe's  House  of  Austria ;  3rd, 

VOL.  I.  B 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

in  the  two  chapters  of  Roscoe's  Leo  the  Tenth  ;  4th,  in  the  54th  chapter  of 
Gibbon.  Read  the  Introduction  and  first  four  chapters  of  Mosheim,  in  vol. 
4  of  our  English  Edition;  second  part  of  Mosheirn 's  History  of  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  Churches  ;  and  lastly,  the  first  part  of  Mosheim,  — more  particu- 
larly the  close  of  it,  for  the  History  of  the  Romish  Church.  Viller's  Prize 
Essay  on  the  Reformation,  more  particularly  on  the  Influence  of  the  Refor- 
mation, and  the  Appendix  on  the  political  situation  of  the  States  of  Europe. 
Council  of  Trent  (Father  Paul)  '2nd  book,  and  latter  part  of  the  8th. 

FOR  REFORMATION   IN   ENGLAND. 

FOR  Wickliffe,  see  Henry's  History  of  England,  —  Neal's  History  of  the 
Puritans,  —  Fox's  Martyrs,  —  3rd  vol.  of  Mosheim, —  and  Milner's  Church 
History.  Hume's  account  of  our  Reformation  should  be  read,  —  and  the 
same  subject  in  Robertson's  History  of  Scotland,  and  first  Appendix  in  Mac- 
leane's  edition  of  Mosheim, —  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation  should 
be  read,  —  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  and  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans, 
should  be  consulted. 

In  Fox,  the  account  given  of  Lambert,  Cranmer,  and  Anne  Askew,  may 
be  sufficient, —  M'Crie's  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland  should  be 
referred  to,  and  there  is  a  very  good  account  of  Luther  in  Milner's  Church 
History. 

Lingard's  History. 

CIVIL  AND   RELIGIOUS  WARS   IN  FRANCE. 

INTRODUCTION  to  Thuanus  or  De  Thou.  Then,  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
parts  of  the  work  that  belong  to  the  History  of  France.  The  military  part 
may  be  slightly  read.  The  French  translation  is  recommended. 

Brantome,  parts  of,—  Memoirs  of  Sully,  parts  of,  —  Wraxall's  Memoirs  of 
the  House  of  Valois,  and  his  History  of  France, —  Abbe  de  Mably. 

Edict  of  Nantz,  1st  chapter  of,  for  first  introduction  and  persecution  of 
Calvinism  in  France. 

Maimbourg's  History  of  the  League  mentioned ;  but  see  Wraxall  for  the 
League. 

Esprit  de  la  Ligue,  by  D'Anquetil  (scarce  book),  partly  incorporated  into 
his  present  8vo.  History,  of  14  vols. 

There  is  a  new  work  by  Lacretelle,  in  two  volumes,  Histoire  de  France 
pendant  les  Guerres  de  Religion. 

HENRY  THE  FOURTH,  OF  FRANCE. 

PEREFIXE'S  Life, —  De  Thou,  —  Sully's  Memoirs,  —  Mably  and  Wraxall 
recommended,  —  Voltaire's  Henriade,  —  Fifth  Book  of  Edict  of  Nantz,  and 
the  Edict  with  the  secret  articles,  to  be  read. 

RELIGIOUS  WARS   IN  THE  LOW   COUNTRIES. 

GROTIUS,  —  Bentivoglio,  —  Strada,  —  original  authors. 

Brandt's  History  of  the  Reformation,  a  century  after. 

Watson's  Philip  the  Second  (all  of  it  to  be  read,  with  the  first  four  books, 
and  other  parts  of  Bentivoglio), —  Bentivoglio,  Strada,  —  and  Grotius  to  be 
read  for  the  important  period  that  preceded  the  coming  of  the  Duke  of  Alva. 


LIST   OF  BOOKS. 

For  the  Arminian  Controversy,  18th  and  19th  books  of  Brandt's  History 
of  the  Reformation  ;  for  the  Synod  of  Dort,  33d  book.  —  See  also  other  parts 
of  chapters,  41, 42,  43,  and  placard  in  50th  book.  —  Brandt's  work  can  only 
be  consulted. 

THIRTY  YEARS'   WAR. 

HARTE'S  Gustavus  Adolphus,  —  Coxe's  House  of  Austria.  The  leading 
points  of  this  subject  seem  to  be, — 

1.  Contest  between  Roman  Catholics  and  Reformers  to  the  Peace  of  Pas- 
sau. 

2.  Provisions  of  that  Peace. 

3.  Conduct  of  the  Protestant  Princes. 

4.  Ditto  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

5.  Elector  Palatine. 

6.  Gustavus  Adolphus,  &c. 

7.  Campaigns  of  Tilly,  &c. 

8.  Continuance  of  the  contest  after  Gustavus's  death. 

9.  Peace  of  Westphalia. 

Schiller's  Thirty  Years'  War  may  be  looked  at,  but  Coxe  seems  the  best 
author  to  be  read,  in  every  respect. 

ENGLISH  HISTORY.  -  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.    ELIZABETH. 
JAMES  THE  FIRST.    CHARLES  THE   FIRST. 

HERBERT'S  Life  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  worth  looking  over, —  Hurd's  Dia- 
logue on  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  —  Miss  Aikin's  Memoirs  of  Elizabeth 
and  James,  —  Hume,  —  Millar,  —  Clarendon,  —  Whitelocke,  —  Ludlow,  — 
Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson, —  Parliamentary  Debates  in  Cobbett,  —  History 
of  Long  Parliament  by  May, —  Rush  worth's  Collections,  —  Nalson's  Ditto, 
—  Harris's  Lives  of  James  the  First,  and  Charles  the  First,  Cromwell,  and 
Charles  the  Second, —  Burnet  and  Laing's  History  of  Scotland,  —  Memoirs 
of  Holies,  —  of  Sir  P.  Warwick  and  Sir  J.  Berkeley, —  Rapin  always  a  sub- 
stitute in  the  absence  of  all  others. 

First  interval,  from  accession  of  Charles  to  the  dissolution  of  his  third  par- 
liament in  1629. 

Second  interval,  from  1629  to  1640. 

Third  interval,  from  1640  to  the  king's  journey  to  Scotland  in  6141. 

Fourth  interval,  from  that  journey  to  the  civil  war. 

Prynne's  Speech  in  Cobbett,  —  Walker's  History  of  Independents  to  be 
looked  at,  and  the  King's  Letters  in  Royston's  edition  of  his  works,  —  Mrs. 
M'Cauley's  History,  very  laborious  :  unfavorable  to  Charles. 

CROMWELL. 

CONFERENCE  at  the  end  of  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  a  book  which  cannot 
be  read,  but  may  easily  be  consulted  from  a  very  good  Index  at  the  end, — 
Ludlow,  from  the  Battle  of  Naseby,  and  pages  79,  105,  and  135,  of  4to. 
edition  for  Cromwell,  and  ditto  Hutchinson,  287,  309,  340;  and  Whitelocke, 
516  and  548,  —  Sir  E.  Walker's  Historical  Discourses,  —  most  of  it  in  Hume, 
Noble's  Memoirs  of  the  Crom wells  may  be  looked  at,  —  Sir  J.  Sinclair's 
History  of  the  Revenue  for  account  of  the  expenses  of  the  Long  Parliament, 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

—  Gamble's  Life  of  Monk,  —  Trial  of  the  Regicides,  short,  and  by  all  means 
to  be  read. 

CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 

HARRIS'S  Lives  (all  these  Lives  by  Harris,  full  of  information  and  histor- 
ical research),  —  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  —  4,  5,  6,  7  chapters  of  the 
second  part,  2d  vol.  —  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy, —  part  of  Claren- 
don's life, —  Burnet's  History  of  his  own  Times, —  Macpherson's  Original 
Papers,  and  Dalrymple's  Memoirs,  vol.  2. 

CHARLES  THE  SECOND,  AND  THE  EXCLUSIONISTS. 
ANDREW  MARVEL'S  Account  of  Bribery,  &c.,  given  in  Cobbett,  —  Ralph's 
History  (most  minute  and  complete),  always  to  be  consulted  for  Charles  the 
Second,  and  James, —  Kennett's  ditto  (mentioned  as  containing  the  King's 
Declaration  or  Appeal  to  the  People), —  Sir  W.  Jones's  Reply  given  in 
Cobbett. 

CHARLES  THE   SECOND. 

MEMOIRS  of  C.  de  Grammont,  —  Dryden's  Political  Poems,  —  Absalom 
and  Achitophel,  &c., —  Hudibras,  —  Grey's  Notes, —  Sermons  and  Public 
Papers  of  the  Presbyterians, —  Laing's  History  of  Scotland. 

REVOLUTION. 

Fox's  History,  —  Macpherson  and  Dalrymple. 

1st  part  of  the  general  subject,  James's  attack  on  the  constitution  and 
liberties  of  the  country. 

2d  Part,  —  Resistance  made  to  him  at  home. 

3d  Part,  —  Ditto  from  abroad,  —  8th  chapter  of  Somerville's  History, — 
for  William's  enterprise,  Burnet's  Memoirs,  —  2d  Earl  of  Clarendon's  Dia- 
ry, from  p.  41,  —  Sir  J.  Reresby's  Memoirs,  —  Conference  between  the 
Houses,  given  in  Cobbett,  —  Somerville's  History  of  William,  &c.  — Ralph, 

—  D'Oyly's  Life  of  Bancroft. 

REIGN   OF   WILLIAM. 

SOMERVILLE,  —  Belsham,  —  Tindal,  —  Ralph, —  Burnet,  —  Cobbett,  5th 
vol.,  —  Macpherson  and  Dalrymple,  —  p.  331,  vol.  9,  Statutes,  8vo.  edit,  for 
Triennial  Bill,  —  Blackstone,  chap.  2,  vol.  4,  for  the  liberty  of  the  press,  — 
and  8th  vol.  of  Statutes, —  13  and  14  Charles  II.  chap.  33,  —  Memoirs  of 
the  Duke  de  St.  Simon,  and  7th  and  8th  of  Bolingbroke's  Letters  on  His- 
tory, for  William's  foreign  politics. 

AMERICA.  — EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES. 

ROBERTSON,  — Preface,  with  5,  6,  7  chapters  of  the  1st  vol.  of  Clavigero, 
and  much  of  vol.  2,  for  Mexico,  —  2d  vol.  Churchill's  Voyages,  for  Life  of 
Columbus,  by  his  son,  — Italian  Collection  of  Ramusio,  for  original  docu- 
ments respecting  America,  &c.  —  Second  Letter  of  Cortez  should  be  read, 

—  there  is  a  Latin  translation  of  2d  and  3d  letter,  very  scarce,  —  Bernal 
Diaz  del  Castillo  should  be  read  ;  it  is  translated  by  Keating,  —  Robertson's 
India.  —  For  Portuguese  settlement,  &c.  in  E.  Indies,  see  5th  chap,  of  Rus- 


LIST  OF   BOOKS. 

sell,  and  first  three  sections  of  8th  vol.  Modern  Universal  History.  —  For 
Brazils,  Harris's  Voyages,  last  edit,  in  1740,  is  always  quoted,  differing  from 
first  editions  entirely.  —  For  Dutch,  &c.  33  chap.  Modern  Universal  Histo- 
ry, and  llth  chap.  Russell.  —  For  English,  &c.,  Robertson's  Posthumous 
Works,  and  first  half  of  1st.  vol.  of  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  Raynal, 
Historical  part  of, —  Burke's  European  Settlements  to  be  read,  —  Hakluyt 
and  Purchas  for  first  attempts  of  navigation,  &c.  very  curious  and  instruc- 
tive. The  latter  volumes  of  Purchas  contain  original  documents  of  the  first 
conquerors,  most  of  Las  Casas'  book,  Mexican  paintings,  &c. 

FRENCH  HISTORY  FROM  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  TO  THE 
END  OF  LOUIS  THE  FOURTEENTH. 

LIVES  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  by  Aubrey,  —  Ditto  of  Richelieu,  by  Le 
Clercj  but  no  good  biographical  account  of  those  ministers, —  Many  Me- 
moirs with  and  without  names.  Amongst  the  best  are  those  of  Madame 
de  Motteville,— Montpensier,  —  Cardinal  de  Retz, —  De  Joly,  son  secretaire, 
-De  la  Rochefoucault,  —  De  la  Fare,  — De  Gourville,— De  la  Fayette : 
out  of  these  have  been  formed  other  works,  not  long,  and  always  read, — 
Esprit  de  la  Ligue,  —  L'Intrigue  du  Cabinet,  —  Louis  XIV.  sa  Cour,  et  le 
Regent,  by  D'Anquetil,  and  L'Esprit  du  Fronde,  an  established  work,  not  by 
D'Anquetil,  as  had  been  supposed. 

But  for  the  times  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin  see  the  chapters  that  relate  to 
them  in  Russell,  with  those  in  the  Modern  Universal  History,  which  will  be 
sufficient,  when  added  to  those  in  Voltaire,  175,  176  of  his  Esprit  des 
Moaurs,  &c.  with  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  but  L'Intrigue  du  Cabinet  also  may 
be  added,  —  for  Louis  the  Fourteenth  the  great  work  is  Memoires  du  Due 
de  St.  Simon,  published  complete  since  the  Revolution,  —  Louis  XIV.  sa 
Cour,  et  le  Regent,  should  be  read,  and  the  Memories  de  Duclos,  with 
Voltaire's  Louis  XIV.  Le  Vassor  is  a  work  read  and  quoted  in  Eng- 
land, and  may  be  consulted  where  the  Huguenots  are  concerned,  —  Edict  of 
Nantz,  —  part  of  22d  and  23d  chapters,  —  Edicts,  &c.  at  the  end  of  the  5th 
vol.  should  be  looked  at  for  Revocation  of  Edict  of  Nantz,  &c.  —  Fenelon's 
Telemaque,  parts  of,  for  faults  of  Louis,  and  early  appearance  of  present 
system  of  Political  Economy,  —  Lacretelle's  late  work,  —  History  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  preparatory  to  his  Precis  of  the  late  Revolution  in 
France,  a  work  well  spoken  of,  —  Memoirs  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  by 
Beaumelle,  though  decried  by  Voltaire,  still  maintains  its  ground. 

WILLIAM  THE  THIRD. 

SOMERVILLE,  —  on  the  whole  the  best  History  of  the  reign  we  as  yet  have, 
—  Belsham  will  furnish  proper  topics  of  reflection,  Tindal  the  detail,  and 
Ralph  even  more  than  Tindal,  —  Burnet  must  of  course  be  read,  —  Cobbett 
will  supply  the  Debates.  There  are  several  important  tracts  in  the  Appen- 
dix to  the  5th  vol.  of  his  Parliamentary  History.  —  Macpherson  and  Dal- 
rymple  must  be  consulted.  —  Some  general  conclusions  in  the  21st  chapter 
of  Somerville  on  Parties,  &c.  &c.,  seem  objectionable. 

For  foreign  politics,  see  Memoirs  of  St.  Simon,  —  Burnet,  —  Hardwicke 
Papers,  — 7th  and  8th  of  Lord  Bolingbroke's  Letters  on  History. 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

ANNE. 

COXE'S  Austria,  —  Eighth  Letter  of  Bolingbroke, —  Torcy's  Memoirs, — 
Mably's  Droit  de  1'Europe, —  some  chapters  in  the  3d  vol.  of  St.  Simon, — 
Macpherson,  —  Trial  of  Dr.  Sacheverell. 

For  the  Union  with  Scotland,  see  Defoe's  History,  a  heavy  4to.,  a  book 
published  by  Bruce,  under  the  direction  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  at  the 
time  of  the  Union  with  Ireland,  —  Works  of  Fletcher  of  Saltoun. 

Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History  and  Somerville's  Account  of  the  Union, 
the  will  be  best  to  read,  with  the  first  hundred  pages  of  the  third  volume 
of  Millar  on  the  English  Constitution. 

GEORGE  THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND.  —  SIR  R.  WALPOLE. 

COXE'S  Life  of  Sir  Robert,  and  his  Life  of  Horace  Lord  Walpole,  —  Bo- 
lingbroke's  Letters,  —  and  Letter  to  Sir  W.  Wyndham,  —  Horace  Walpole 
against  Bolingbroke,  —  Parliamentary  Debates. 

Bolingbroke's  Patriot  King,  and  Dissertation  on  Parties,  to  be  compared 
with  Burke's  Thoughts  on  the  present  Discontents. 

London  Magazine  and  Gentleman's  Magazine. 

FRANCE, -REGENCY  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  ORLEANS,  &c. 

MEMOIRS  of  the  Duke  de  St.  Simon,  —  last  volume  of  D'AnquetiPs  Louis 
XIV.  sa  Cour,  et  le  Regent,  —  Memoirs  of  Duclos,  —  L'Histoire  of  La- 
cretelle,  —  and  for  the  Mississippi  Scheme  of  Law,  look  at  Steuart's  Politi- 
cal Economy.  —  There  is  a  great  work  on  Finance,  by  Fourbonnois,  where 
the  subject  is  thoroughly  considered  and  is  made  tolerably  intelligible,  — 
Adam  Smith  refers  to  Du  Verney,  — For  South  Sea  Bubble,  see  Coxe's  Sir 
R.  Walpole,  —  Steuart's  Political  Economy,  —  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  His- 
tory,—  Aislabie's  Second  Defence  before  the  Lords,  —  Report  of  the  Ad- 
dress, &c.  &c. 

KING  OF  PRUSSIA. 

THIEBADLT, —  Edinburgh  Review  of  that  work, —  Tower's  Life  of  King 
of  Prussia.  These  will  be  sufficient  for  the  general  reader. 

Mirabeau  on  the  Prussian  Monarchy;  particularly  the  first  vol.  and  last; 
read  and  criticize  the  general  observations  in  other  vols.  of  the  work.  Noth- 
ing of  an  historical  nature  in  the  Letters  between  him  and  Voltaire. 

The  King  gives  in  his  own  works  an  account  of  his  own  Campaigns. — 
Gillies'  work  is  very  different. 

FRANCE.— LOUIS   THE  FIFTEENTH. 

THE  detail  of  the  History  of  this  Reign  would  be  but  the  history  of  the 
King's  mistresses  and  their  favorites. 

The  late  work  of  Lacretelle, —  his  Histoire  de  France  pendant  le  XVIII. 
Siccle,  will  supply  every  information  necessary  for  the  general  reader,  and 
in  a  very  agreeable  manner. 

The  Financial  Disputes  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Disputes,  both  making  up 
the  disputes  between  the  Court  and  Parliaments,  are  the  chief  points ;  these 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

disputes  with  the  new  opinions,  uniting  to  produce  the  late  French  Revolu- 
tion. 

The  Foreign  Politics  may  be  gathered  from  Voltaire  and  Coxe's  Austria, 
in  a  general  manner. 

See  also  Duclos. 

PELHAM  ADMINISTRATION. 

SCOTCH  Rebellion  in  1745,—  History  of  it,  by  Home,  the  book  not  thought 
equal  to  his  fame,  but  it  tells  all  that  need  now  be  known,  and  is  in  many 
places  very  interesting,  —  Melcombe's  Diary,  —  Belsham. 

GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  — OPENING  OF  THE  REIGN. 

ADOLPHOS,  —  Belsham  (neither  without  the  other),  —  Melcombe's  Diary 

—  Burke's  Thoughts  on  Present  Discontents. 

AMERICAN    WAR. 

SPEECHES  in  the  two  Houses, —  George  Grenville,  —  Pitt,  —  Governor 
Pownall,  &c.  &c.  See  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History,  —  Examination 
of  Mr.  Penn, —  Dean  Tucker's  Tracts  (the  third  particularly),  and  his  "  Cui 
Bono,"  —  Pamphlet  by  Robinson,  brother  to  the  Primate  ;  Ditto,  by  Dr. 
Johnson,  Taxation  no  Tyranny,  —  Burke's  Speeches, —  Dr.  Ramsay's  His- 
tory of  the  American  War, —  Annual  Register, — Paine's  Common  Sense, 

—  Paper  to  have  been  presented  to  the  King,  in  Burke's  Works,  —  Gibbon's 
Memoirs,  —  Notices  of  the  American  Contest  in  his  Letters.  —  Bentivoglio, 

—  Speeches  in  the  Spanish  Council  on  the   subject  of  the  Low  Countries, 
by  the   Duke  of  Alva,   &c  — Washington's  Letters,  —  Marshall's  Life  of 
Washington, —  Belsham  and  Adolphus  (neither  without  the  other), —  Parts 
of  the  Works  of  Franklin,  and  of  his  Correspondence.  —  The  great  Maga- 
zine of  information  is  the    Remembrancer,  a  work  of  20  volumes,  drawn  up 
by  Almon,  an   opposition  bookseller  at  the  time,  and  the  Remembrancer 
therefore  chiefly  offers  to  the  remembrance  such  speeches  and  documents  as 
are  unfavorable  to  the    councils  of  Great  Britain,  —  Gordon,  4  thick  8vo. 
volumes,  full  of  facts,  and  impartial,  but  with  no  other  merit.  —  The  Legal 
History  of  the  Colonies  may  be  found  in  Chalmers,  a  book  which  may  be 
consulted,  but  cannot  be  read.  —  Stedman  wrote  a  History  of  the  American 
War,  an  actor  in  the  scene,  and  a  sensible  man,  but  with  ordinary  views. 

Many  histories  and  many  political  subjects  have  been  passed  by,  but  they 
who  would  look  for  more,  or  would  think  it  advisable  to  turn  aside  from  the 
course  here  proposed,  may  consult  the  volumes  of  the  Modern  Universal 
History,  and  they  will  find,  either  in  the  text  or  the  references,  every  his- 
torical information  they  can  well  require. 

Catalogues  of  great  Libraries  (the  Catalogue,  for  instance,  of  the  Royal 
Institution  in  London)  will  give  the  student  an  immediate  view  of  all  the 
valuable  Books  that  refer  to  any  particular  subject  of  his  inquiry. 

Biography,  though  dealing  too  much  in  panegyric,  is  always  more  or  less 
entertaining  and  instructive,  often  affording  at  the  same  time  historical  facts 
and  traits  of  character,  that  are  by  no  means  without  their  importance, 
though  they  may  have  escaped  the  general  historian ;  these  may  be  also 
often  found  in  the  histories  of  countries. 


LIST  OF  BOOKS. 

Since  this  Syllabus  was  first  drawn  up,  many  Works  have  appeared, 
which  should  now  find  a  place  in  it. 

Hallam  on  the  Middle  Ages,  —  Sismondi,  —  Brodie,  —  vols.  of  Lingard's 
History,  —  more  valuable  editions  of  Clarendon  and  Burnet,  —  entertaining 
and  instructive  Works  by  Miss  Aikin  and  Lord  J.  Russell,  —  a  Work  on  the 
Times  of  Charles  the  First,  and  the  Republic,  by  Godwin,  —  a  valuable 
Selection  of  the  State  Trials,  by  Phillips,  —  a  most  important  work  on  the 
Constitutional  History  of  this  Country,  by  Hallam,  &c.  &c.  —  A  History 
of  our  own  Revolution,  by  a  French  writer,  Mazure,  and  a  History  of  the 
Times  of  Charles  the  First,  by  Guizot,  a  short  History  of  Spain  by  Mrs. 
Calcott,  a  continuation  of  the  Histories  of  Hume  and  Smollet,  drawn  up 
with  diligence  and  ability  by  Mr.  Hughes,  of  Cambridge,  and  valuable  Pub- 
lications by  Coxe,  Life  of  Marlborough,  &c.,  and  a  History  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  by  Prescott,  the  American  historian. 

ON  the  subject  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  following  Works  have  been 
recommended  as  a  short  Course. 

Mignet, —  Thiers,  —  Mad.  de  Stae'l, —  Account  of  Revolution  in  Dods- 
ley's  Annual  Register, —  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Fran<jaise,  par  deux 
Amis  de  la  Liberte,  —  To  these  may  be  now  added,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  two 
first  volumes  of  his  Life  of  Napoleon. 

MEMOIRS  on  the  subject  of  the  French  Revolution  are  now  publishing  by 
the  Baudouin  Freres  at  Paris.  The  following  may  be  more  particularly 
mentioned  :  —  Memoirs  by  M.  de  Ferrieres,  —  Mad.  Roland,  —  Bailly,  — 
Barbaroux,  —  Sur  les  Journees  de  Septembre, —  Weber, —  Hue,  —  Clery, 
—  Louvet,  —  Duniouriez,  —  Memoirs  and  Annals  of  the  French  Revolution, 
by  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  &c.  &c. 

The  Speeches  of  Mirabeau  should  be  looked  at,  and  Necker's  Works,  for 
the  earlier  periods  of  the  Revolution  — There  is  a  democratic  Work  by 
Bailleul,  written  in  opposition  to  the  Considerations  of  Mad.  de  Stae'l.  — 
There  is  a  Precis  of  the  Revolution,  begun  by  Rabaut  de  St.  Etienne  and 
continued  by  Lacretelle. 

There  is  an  useful  work,  Revue  Chronologique  de  1'Histoire  Franqaise, 
from  1787  to  1818,  by  Montgaillard,  now  expanded  by  the  same  writer  into 
a  regular  History. 

There  is  a  History  by  Toulongeon. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

1809. 

I  MUST  avail  myself  of  the  privilege  of  a  prefatory  address 
to  enter  into  some  explanations  with  respect  to  the  lectures  I 
am  going  to  deliver,  which  could  not  well  find  a  place  in  the 
lectures  themselves. 

I  must  mention  to  you  the  plan  upon  which  they  are  drawn 
Up. 

And  I  think  it  best  to  give  you  at  once  the  history  of  iny 
Own  thoughts  in  forming  this  plan,  because  such  a  detail  will 
serve  to  display  the  general  nature  of  the  study  in  which  you 
are  now  to  engage,  and  will  lead  to  observations  that  may 
afford  to  these  lectures  their  best  chance  of  being  useful. 

My  first  impressions,  then,  with  respect  to  a  scheme  for 
Lectures  on  Modefn  History,  were  these,  — 

That,  in  the  first  place,  all  detail,  all  narrative,  were  impos- 
sible. 

That  the  great  subject  before  me  was  the  situation  of  Eu- 
rope in  different  periods  of  these  later  ages,  —  the  progress 
of  the  human  mind,  of  human  society,  of  human  happiness,  of 
the  intellectual  character  of  the  species  for  the  last  fifteen  cen- 
turies. Every  thing,  therefore,  of  a  temporary  nature  was 
to  be  excluded  ;  all  more  particular  and  local  history  ;  all 
peculiar  delineations  of  characters,  revolutions,  and  events, 
that  concerned  not  the  general  interests  of  mankind.  That 
the  history  of  France  or  Spain  or  England  was  not  to  be 
Considered  separately  and  distinctly,  but  only  in  conjunction, 
each  with  the  other  ;  each,  only  as  it  affected  by  its  relations 
the  great  community  of  Europe.  That,  in  short,  such  occur- 
rences only  were  to  be  mentioned,  as  indicated  the  character 
of  the  times, — such  changes  only,  as  left  permanent  effects. 
That  a  summary,  an  estimate  of  human  nature,  as  it  had  shown 
itself,  since  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire,  on  the  great  theatre 

VOL.  i.  1 


2  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

of  the  civilized  part  of  the  world,  was,  if  possible,  to  be 
given. 

I  must  confess  that  this  still  appears  to  me  to  be  the  genuine 
and  proper  idea  of  a  course  of  lectures  on  modem  history. 
But  to  this  plan  the  obvious  objection  was,  its  extent  and  its 
difficulty. 

The  great  Lord  Bacon  did  not  find  himself  unworthily 
employed  when  he  was  considering  the  existing  situation,  and 
contemplating  the  future  advancement,  of  human  learning  ;  but 
to  look  back  upon  the  world  and  to  consider  the  different 
movements  of  different  nations,  whether  retrograde  or  in  ad- 
vance, and  to  state  the  progress  of  the  whole  from  time  to 
time,  as  resulting  from  the  combined  effect  of  the  failures  and 
successes  of  all  the  parts,  —  to  attempt  this,  is  to  attempt  more 
than  was  effected  even  by  the  enterprising  mind  of  Bacon  ; 
for  it  is  to  appreciate  the  facts  as  well  as  to  exhibit  the  theory 
of  human  society,  —  to  weigh  in  the  balance  the  conduct,  as 
well  as  the  intelligence,  of  mankind,  and  to  extend  to  the  reli- 
gion, legislation,  and  policy  of  states,  and  to  the  infinitely  diver- 
sified subject  of  their  political  happiness,  the  same  inquiry, 
criticism,  and  speculation,  which  the  wisest  and  brightest  of 
mankind  had  been  content  to  extend  only  to  the  more  particu- 
lar theme  of  human  knowledge. 

Such  were  the  first  impressions  produced  upon  my  mind  by 
the  plan  that  had  thus  occurred  to  me. 

It  is  very  true,  that,  when  they  had  somewhat  subsided,  I 
became  sufficiently  aware  that  objections  like  these  must  not 
be  urged  too  far.  That  a  plan  might  be  very  imperfectly 
executed,  and  yet  answer  many  of  its  original  purposes,  as  far 
as  the  instruction  of  the  hearer  was  concerned,  and  that  this 
was,  on  the  whole,  sufficient.  The  effect  upon  the  hearer 
being  the  point  of  real  consequence,  not  the  literary  failures 
or  successes  of  the  lecturer. 

This  scheme  of  lectures,  however,  I  have  not  adopted,  for, 
though  I  might  fairly  have  been  permitted  to  execute  it  in  a 
slight  and  inadequate  manner,  I  was  persuaded  that  lectures 
would  be  expected  from  me  in  this  place  long  before  I  could 
have  attempted  to  execute  it,  in  any  manner,  however  imper- 
fect and  inadequate  to  my  wishes. 

Having  mentioned  this  reason,  it  is  unnecessary  to  mention 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  3 

others,  which  might  also  have  induced  me  to  form  the  same 
resolution. 

But  a  plan  of  this  sort,  though  rejected  by  me  as  a  lecturer, 
should  always  be  present  to  you  as  readers  of  history.  By  no 
other  means  can  you  derive  the  full  benefit  that  may  and  should 
be  derived  from  the  annals  of  the  past. 

Large  and  comprehensive  views,  the  connexion  of  causes 
and  effects,  the  steady,  though  often  slow,  and,  at  the  time, 
unperceived  influence  of  general  principles  ;  habits  of  calm 
speculation,  of  foresight,  of  deliberative  and  providing  wis- 
dom, these  are  the  lessons  of  instruction,  and  these  the  best 
advantages  to  be  gained  by  the  contemplation  of  history  ;  and 
it  is  to  these  that  the  ambition  of  an  historical  student  should 
be  at  all  events  directed. 

The  next  scheme  of  lectures,  that  occurred  to  me,  was  to 
take  particular  periods  of  history  and  to  review  and  estimate 
several  of  them,  if  possible,  in  a  connected  manner.  The 
period,  for  instance,  of  the  Dark  Ages,  of  the  Revival  of 
Learning,  of  the  Reformation,  of  the  Religious  Wars,  of  the 
power  and  enterprises  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  of  the  pros- 
perity of  Europe  towards  the  close  of  the  last  century. 

These  periods  could  not  be  described  and  examined  without 
conveying  to  the  hearer  a  very  full  impression,  not  only  of  the 
leading  events,  but  of  the  general  meaning  and  importance  of 
modern  history.  All  the  proper  purposes  of  a  system  of 
lectures  would  be,  therefore,  by  these  means,  very  sufficiently 
answered  ;  and,  as  the  plan  is  somewhat  confined  and  brought 
within  a  definite  compass,  it  has  the  important  merit  of  being 
practicable. 

But  after  some  deliberation,  this  plan,  also,  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  reject  ;  chiefly  because  to  attempt  it  would  be 
rather  to  attempt  to  write  a  book,  than  to  give  lectures.  I 
do  not  say  that  those  pages,  which  now  make  a  good  book, 
can  ever  have  made  bad  lectures.  But  a  lecture  is,  after  all, 
not  a  book  ;  and  the  question  is,  whether  the  same  lecturer 
might  not  have  improved  his  hearers  more  by  a  less  elaborate 
mode  of  address. 

Instead,  then,  of  endeavouring  to  draw  up  any  general  his- 
tory of  Europe  since  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  empire  in 
the  west,  and  instead  of  attempting  any  discussion  of  different 


4  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

periods  under  the  form  of  regular  treatises,  I  at  last  thought  it 
best  to  fix  my  attention  on  my  hearers  only,  and  to  confine  my 
efforts  to  one  point.  The  object,  therefore,  which  I  have 
selected  is  this,  to  endeavour  to  assist  my  hearers  in  reading 
history  for  themselves. 

Now  this  plan  of  lectures,  simple  as  it  may  at  first  appear, 
will  be  found  to  comprehend  a  task  of  more  than  sufficient 
difficulty  for  me,  and  be  very  adequate,  as  I  conceive,  to  all 
the  purposes  which  lectures  can  attempt  to  accomplish  for 
you. 

For,  with  respect  to  myself,  what  must  be  the  province  allot- 
ted to  me  ?  I  must  prefer  one  book  to  another,  and  must  have 
reasons  for  my  preference,  and  must  therefore  read  and  ex- 
amine  many. 

In  the  next  place,  I  must,  from  the  endless  detail  of  Euro- 
pean transactions,  direct  the  attention  of  my  hearers  to  such 
particular  trains  in  these  transactions,  as  will,  on  the  whole, 
give,  if  possible,  a  general  and  commanding  view  of  the  great 
subjects  of  modern  history. 

This  cannot  be  attempted  by  me  without  meditating  the 
whole,  and  considering  the  relations  of  all  the  different  parts 
with  great  care  and  patience. 

Lastly,  I  must  endeavour,  if  I  can,  to  state  why  particular 
periods  or  characters  in  history  have  become  interesting,  and 
to  convey  some  portion  of  that  interest  to  my  hearers. 

Such  are  the  objects  which  I  have  selected  as  the  fittest  to 
excite  my  own  wishes,  and  engage  my  own  labors. 

What,  in  the  mean  time,  is  to  be  the  task  that  is  to  devolve 
upon  you  9 

It  must  be  for  you  to  carry  with  you  into  your  own  studies 
the  advice  I  have  offered,  the  criticisms  I  have  made,  the 
moral  sympathies,  the  political  principles,  by  which  I  appear  to 
have  been  myself  affected,  and  these  must,  all  of  them,  become 
the  topics  of  your  own  reflection  and  examination. 

It  is,  therefore,  already  evident,  that  we  have,  each  of  us, 
in  our  several  provinces,  enough  to  perform,  if  we  do  but  en- 
deavour to  discharge,  with  proper  diligence  and  ardor,  the 
several  duties  that  belong  to  us. 

Turning  now  from  the  consideration  of  the  plan  of  the  lec- 
tures, to  the  mode  in  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  execute 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  5 

it,  as  my  object  was  to  assist  my  hearers  in  reading  history 
for  themselves,  my  first  inquiry  was  this, — What  course  of 
historical  reading  it  would  be  fittest  to  recommend, — what 
were  the  books,  and  how  were  they  to  be  read. 

The  first  direction  of  a  student's  mind  would  be,  I  knew,  to 
have  recourse  to  general  histories,  to  summaries  and  abridg- 
ments of  history  ;  for  in  this  manner  it  would  naturally  be 
thought  that  the  greatest  possible  historical  information  might 
be  procured  with  the  least  possible  exertion. 

I  therefore  devoted  a  considerable  portion  of  time  to  the 
general  history  of  Voltaire,  the  modern  history  of  Russell,  and 
to  the  French  general  history  by  the  Chevalier  Mehegan.  All 
works  of  merit,  and  reputation,  the  first  and  last  of  great  ce- 
lebrity. The  first  advice,  then,  which  I  shall  take  upon  me 
to  give,  as  the  result  of  my  experience,  is  this  ;  —  not  to  read 
general  histories  and  abridgments  of  history,  as  a  more  sum- 
mary method  of  acquiring  historical  knowledge.  There  is  no 
summary  method  of  acquiring  knowledge.  Abridgments  of 
history  have  their  use,  but  this  is  not  their  use  nor  can  be. 
When  the  detail  is  tolerably  known,  the  summary  can  then  be 
understood,  but  not  before.  Summaries  may  always  serve, 
most  usefully,  to  revive  the  knowledge  which  has  been  before 
acquired,  may  throw  it  into  proper  shapes  and  proportions, 
and  leave  it  in  this  state  upon  the  memory,  to  supply  the  mate- 
rials of  subsequent  reflection.  But  general  histories,  if  they 
are  read,  first,  and  before  the  particular  history  is  known,  are 
a  sort  of  chain,  of  which  the  links  seem  not  connected  ;  con- 
tain representations  and  statements,  which  cannot  be  under- 
stood, and  therefore  cannot  be  remembered  ;  and  exhibit  to 
the  mind  a  succession  of  objects  and  images,  each  of  which 
appears  and  retires  too  rapidly  to  be  surveyed,  and,  when  the 
whole  vision  has  passed  by,  as  soon  it  does,  a  trace  of  it  is 
scarcely  found  to  remain.  Were  I  to  look  from  an  eminence 
over  a  country  which  I  had  never  before  seen,  I  should  dis- 
cover only  the  principal  objects  ;  the  villa,  the  stream,  the 
lawn,  or  the  wood.  But,  if  the  landscape  before  me  had  been 
the  scene  of  my  childhood  or  lately  of  my  residence,  every 
object  would  bring  along  with  it  all  its  attendant  associations, 
and  the  picture  that  was  presented  to  the  eye  would  be  the 
least  part  of  the  impression  that  was  received  by  the  mind. 


6  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

Such  is  the  difference  between  reading  general  histories  before, 
or  after,  the  particular  histories  to  which  they  refer. 

I  must  not  indeed  omit  to  observe,  that  there  are  some  parts 
of  history  so  obscure  and  of  so  little  importance,  that  general 
accounts  of  them  are  all  that  can  either  be  expected  or  re- 
quired. Abridgments  and  general  histories  must  here  be 
used.  Not  that  much  can  be  thus  received,  but  that  much  is 
not  wanted,  and  that  what  little  is  necessary  may  be  thus 
obtained. 

I  must  also  confess  that  general  histories  may  in  like  manner 
be  resorted  to,  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  a  general  notion  of 
the  great  leading  features  of  any  particular  history  ;  they  may 
be  to  the  student,  what  maps  are  to  the  traveller,  and  give  an 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  country,  and  of  the  magnitude  and 
situation  of  the  towns,  through  which  he  is  to  pass  ;  they  may 
teach  him  what  he  is  to  expect,  and  at  what  points  he  is  to  be 
the  most  diligent  in  his  inquiries. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  general  histories  may  be  considered  as 
of  great  importance,  and  that  even  before  the  perusal  of  the 
particular  histories  to  which  they  refer  ;  but  they  must  never 
be  resorted  to,  except  in  the  instances,  and  for  the  purposes 
just  mentioned, — they  must  not  be  used  as  substitutes  for 
more  minute  and  regular  histories,  not  as  short  methods  of 
acquiring  knowledge  ;  —  they  are  meant  to  give  (and  they  may 
most  usefully  give)  commanding  views,  comprehensive  esti- 
mates, general  impressions ;  but  these  cannot  supersede  that 
labor  which  must  be  endured  by  all  those;  who  would  possess 
themselves  of  information. 

If,  therefore,  general  histories  and  summaries  of  history  are 
not  to  be  read,  as  a  short  way  of  acquiring  historical  knowl- 
edge, and  if  history,  when  it  is  of  importance,  must  be  read 
in  the  detail,  a  most  melancholy  prospect  immediately  presents 
itself;  for  the  books  of  historical  detail,  the  volumes  which 
constitute  modern  history,  are  innumerable.  Alps  on  Alps 
arise.  This  is  a  difficulty  of  all  others  the  most  invincible  and 
embarrassing.  I  must  endeavour  to  consider  it  with  all  possi- 
ble attention. 

The  great  authority  on  a  subject  like  this  is  Dufresnoy,  — 
Dufresnoy's  Chronology.  After  laying  down  a  course  of  his- 
torical reading  such  as  he  conceives  indispensably  necessary, 
and  quite  practicable,  he  calmly  observes  that  the  time  which 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  7 

it  is  to  take  up  is  ten  years  ;  and  this,  too,  upon  a  supposition, 
that  much  more  of  every  day  is  to  be  occupied  with  study 
than  can  possibly  be  expected,  and  that  many  more  pages  shall 
be  read  in  the  twenty-four  hours  than  can  possibly  be  reflected 
upon. 

I  remember  to  have  heard,  that  a  man  of  literature  and 
great  historical  reading  had  once  been  speaking  of  the  great 
French  historian  Thuanus  in  those  terms  of  commendation 
which  it  was  natural  for  him  to  employ,  when  alluding  to  a 
work  of  such  extraordinary  merit.  A  youth  who  had  listened 
to  him,  with  all  the  laudable  ardor  of  his  particular  time  of 
life,  had  no  sooner  retired  from  his  company  than  he  instantly 
sent  for  Thuanus,  resolving  to  begin  immediately  the  perusal 
of  a  performance  so  celebrated,  and  from  that  moment  to 
become  a  reader  of  history.  Thuanus  was  brought  to  him,  — 
seven  folio  volumes.  Ardent  as  was  the  student,  surprise  was 
soon  succeeded  by  total  and  irremediable  despair.  Art  was 
indeed  too  long,  he  must  have  thought,  and  life  too  short,  if 
such  was  to  be  his  entrance  to  knowledge,  and  not  indeed  to 
knowledge,  but  to  one  department  among  many  others  of 
human  inquiry. 

Now  this  effect  was  certainly  not  the  effect  which  was 
intended, — all  risk  of  any  event  like  this  must  be  most  care- 
fully avoided.  And  on  the  whole  it  is  sufficiently  evident, 
that  any  lecturer  in  history  cannot  be  better  employed  than 
in  studying  how  to  render  the  course  of  reading,  which  he 
proposes,  as  short,  i.  e.  as  practicable,  as  it  can  possibly  be 
made  ;  such  as,  amid  the  natural  occupations  of  human  life, 
may  be  accomplished.  It  is  in  vain  to  recommend  to  the  gen- 
erality of  readers  books,  which  it  might  be  the  labor  of  years 
to  peruse  ;  they  will  certainly  not  be  perused,  and  the  lecturer, 
while  he  conceives  that  he  has  discharged  his  office,  has  only 
made  the  mistake  so  natural  to  his  situation,  that  of  supposing 
that  there  is  no  art,  or  science,  or  species  of  knowledge  in 
existence,  but  the  one  he  professes,  and  that  his  audience 
are,  like  himself,  to  be  almost  exclusively  occupied  in  its 
consideration. 

But  evils  are  more  easily  described  than  remedied.  What 
is  in  this  case  to  be  done  ?  Are  the  great  writers  of  history 
not  to  be  read  ?  What  is  the  study  of  history  but  the  reading 
of  them  ? 


8  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

The  first  object,  therefore,  of  my  anxieties,  in  consequence 
of  this  difficulty,  has  been,  through  the  whole  of  my  lectures 
to  recommend,  not  as  many  books  as  the  subject  admitted  of, 
but  as  few. 

And  I  am  the  more  at  ease  while  I  do  this,  because  the 
best  authors  in  every  different  part  of  history  have  their  mar- 
gins crowded  with  references  to  other  books  and  to  original 
authorities  :  and  such  readers,  as  are  called  upon  to  study  any 
particular  point  or  period  of  history  more  minutely  than  can 
in  general  be  necessary,  need  be  at  no  loss  for  proper  ma- 
terials on  which  to  exercise  their  diligence,  and  cannot  want 
to  receive  from  me  an  enumeration  of  those  references  and 
means  of  information,  which  they  can  in  this  manner  so  readily 
find. 

But  I  have  ventured  to  do  more  than  this,  — for  I  have  not 
only  recommended  as  few  books  as  possible,  but  I  have 
recommended  only  parts  of  books,  and  sometimes  only  a  few 
pages  in  a  volume. 

This,  it  will  be  said,  is  surely  a  superficial  way  of  reading 
history.  What  can  be  known  of  a  book  when  only  a  part  is 
read  ?  This  is  not  the  manner  in  which  subjects  were  studied 
by  our  ancestors,  the  scholars  of  other  times.  But  there  were 
giants  in  those  days,  it  will  be  added,  and  we  are  but  a  puny 
race  of  sciolists,  who  cannot,  it  seems,  find  leisure  enough 
even  to  peruse,  much  less  to  rival,  the  works  which  their 
labors  have  transmitted  for  our  instruction. 

I  mean  not  to  deny,  that  there  is  considerable  weight  in  this 
objection  ;  and  nothing  but  the  intolerable  perplexity  of  the 
case,  its  insurmountable  difficulty,  the  impossibility  of  adopting 
any  other  course,  would  ever  have  induced  me  to  propose  to 
students  to  read  books  in  parts  ;  but  I  must  repeat  it,  that 
human  life  does  not  now  admit  of  any  other  expedient,  and  the 
alternative  lo  which  we  are  reduced  in  plain  truth  is  this, 
either  to  read  books  of  history  in  this  manner,  or  not  to  read 
them  at  all. 

He  knows  little  of  human  learning  or  of  himself  who  vener- 
ates not  the  scholars  of  former  times,  —  the  great  intellectual 
laborers  that  have  preceded  us.  It  would  be  an  ill  interpreta- 
tion, indeed,  of  what  I  shall  recommend,  if  it  be  concluded, 
that  because  I  think  their  volumes  are  often  to  be  read  in  parts 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  9 

only,  that  I  do  so  from  the  slightest  feeling  of  disrespect  to 
authors  like  these,  or  to  the  great  literary  works  that  they  have 
so  meritoriously  accomplished. 

But  the  condition  of  society  is  continually  changing,  and 
the  situation  of  our  ancestors  is  no  longer  ours.  In  no  respect 
has  it  altered  more  than  in  the  interior  economy  of  the  manage- 
ment of  time,  —  more  especially  of  a  student's  time.  Avenues 
of  inquiry  and  knowledge  have  been  opened  to  us,  that  were 
to  them  unknown.  The  regions  of  science,  for  instance,  may 
be  considered  as  a  world  lately  found,  hitherto  but  partially 
explored)  and  in  itself  inexhaustible. 

What  are  we  to  say,  in  like  manner,  of  the  avocations,  and 
even  amusements,  of  social  life,  which  have  everywhere  been 
multiplied  by  the  growing  prosperity  of  mankind,  —  many  of 
them  not  only  intellectual,  but  intellectual  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word  ?  The  patient  and  solitary  student  can 
never  be  a  character  without  its  value  and  respectability  ;  but 
the  character  can  no  longer  be  met  with,  as  it  once  was,  now 
that  the  genius  of  men  is  attracted  to  the  inventions  of  art,  the 
discoveries  of  science,  and  the  various  prizes  of  affluence 
and  of  honor,  that  are  more  and  more  held  up  to  ambition, 
as  a  country  more  and  more  improves  in  civilization  and 
prosperity. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  must  not  be  forgotten, 
when  this  method  which  I  have  mentioned,  of  reading  books 
in  parts,  is  considered. 

Literature,  like  society,  advances  step  by  step.  Every 
treatise  and  book  of  value  contains  some  particular  part  that 
is  of  more  value  than  the  rest,  —  something  by  which  it  has 
added  to  the  general  stock  of  human  knowledge  or  enter- 
tainment, —  something  on  account  of  which  it  was  more  par- 
ticularly read  and  admired  while  a  new  book,  and  on  account 
of  which  it  continues  to  be  read  and  admired  while  an  old 
one.  Now,  it  is  these  different  portions  of  every  different 
volume,  that  united  form  the  effective  literature  or  knowledge 
of  every  civilized  nation  ;  and,  when  collected  from  the  differ- 
ent languages  of  Europe,  the  literature  and  knowledge  of  the 
most  civilized  portion  of  mankind.  It  is-  by  these  parts  of 
more  peculiar  and  original  merit,  that  these  volumes  are  known. 
It  is  these  to  which  every  man  of  matured  talents  and  finished 

VOL.  i.  2 


10  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

education  alone  adverts.  It  is  these  which  he  endeavours 
chiefly  to  remember.  It  is  these  that  make  up  the  treasures, 
and  constitute  the  capital,  as  it  were,  of  his  mind, — the  re- 
mainder of  each  volume  is  but  that  subordinate  portion  which 
has  no  value  but  as  connected  with  the  other,  and  is  often 
made  up  of  those  errors  and  imperfections  which  are  in  fact 
the  inseparable  attendants  of  every  human  production,  which 
are  observed  and  avoided  by  every  writer  or  reasoner  who  fol- 
lows, and  which  gradually  become  in  one  age  only  the  exploded 
characteristics  of  another. 

It  is  thus  that  human  knowledge  becomes  progressive,  and 
that  the  general  intelligence  of  society  gains  a  new  station  in 
advance,  from  the  reiterated  impulses  of  each  succeeding 
mind.  It  therefore  by  no  means  follows,  when  books  are 
read  in  parts,  that  they  are  therefore  read  superficially.  Some 
books  (says  my  Lord  Bacon)  are  to  be  tasted,  some  few  to  be 
chewed  and  digested  :  that  is,  some  books  are  to  be  read  only 
in  parts  ;  others  to  be  read,  but  not  curiously  ;  and  some  few 
to  be  read  wholly,  and  with  diligence  and  attention.  The 
same  may  be  pretty  generally  said  of  the  different  portions 
of  the  same  work.  Much  care  and  circumspection  must  un- 
doubtedly be  used  in  selecting  and  discriminating  the  parts 
to  be  tasted,  to  be  chewed,  and  to  be  digested.  The  more 
youthful  the  mind,  the  less  skilful  will  be  the  choice,  and  the 
more  hazardous  the  privilege,  thus  allowed,  of  reading  pages 
by  a  glance  and  chapters  by  a  table  of  contents.  But  the 
mind,  after  some  failures  and  some  experience,  will  materially 
improve  in  this  great  and  necessary  art,  the  art  of  reading 
much,  while  reading  little.  Now,  if  there  be  any  department 
of  human  inquiry  into  which  this  very  delicate,  difficult,  and 
dangerous  mode  of  reading  may  be  introduced,  it  is  surely 
that  of  history.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  books  of 
science  or  of  knowledge,  in  books  of  history  at  least  there  is 
every  variety  in  the  importance  of  different  passages.  Neither 
events,  nor  characters,  nor  periods  of  time  are  at  all  the  same 
or  of  equal  consequence.  Nor  are  the  writers  of  like  merit 
with  each  other,  or  of  like  authority,  or  have  they  written  with 
the  same  views,  or  are  they  to  be  consulted  for  the  same  pur- 
poses. There  is  ample  room,  therefore,  for  the  exercise  of 
judgment  in  the  preference  we  give  to  one  writer  above 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  11 

another,  and  in  the  different  degrees  of  attention  which  we 
exercise  upon  one  event,  or  character,  or  era,  rather  than  an- 
other ;  and,  as  the  powers  as  well  as  the  opportunities  of  the 
human  mind  are  bounded,  it  behoves  us  well  to  consider  what 
is  the  nature  of  the  burthen  we  impose  upon  our  faculties  ; 
for  assuredly  he  who  is  very  anxious  to  load  his  memory  with 
much,  will  in  general  have  little  which  in  the  hour  of  need  he 
can  produce,  and  still  less  of  which  his  understanding  has 
ascertained  the  value.  Such  are  the  considerations  by  which 
I  have  been  reconciled  to  the  modes  I  have  proposed,  of 
struggling  with  the  difficulties  I  have  described. 

Before  I  proceed,  I  must  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  say 
one  word  in  the  way  of  digression  upon  this  most  important 
subject  of  memory. 

It  cannot  but  be  supposed,  that  he  who  reads  and  retains 
the  most,  will  always  have  a  superiority  over  those  whose 
talents  or  diligence  are  in  truth  inferior.  But  this  only  ren- 
ders it  a  point  of  prudence  the  more  pressing  upon  every  man 
to  inform  himself  thoroughly  of  the  nature  of  his  own  capa- 
city, particularly  of  his  memory,  and  to  provide  accordingly. 
It  is  peculiarly  so  on  an  historical  student.  After  having 
considered  what  he  may  pass  over  slightly  and  what  he  must 
regularly  read,  he  may  next  consider  what  he  is  to  remember 
minutely,  what  generally  ;  and  what,  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
membering better  things,  he  may  suffer  himself  to  think  of  no 
more. 

Now  what  I  would  wish  to  suggest  to  my  hearers,  more 
especially  to  those  whose  memories  are  either  of  a  common  or 
of  an  inferior  description,  is  this,  that  general  impressions,  that 
general  recollections,  are  of  far  greater  importance  than  might 
be  at  first  supposed. 

General  impressions  will  enable  us  to  treasure  up  in  our 
minds  all  the  great  leading  lessons,  all  the  philosophy  of 
history. 

General  impressions  are  quite  sufficient  to  suggest  the  simi- 
larity of  cases.  They  will,  therefore,  always  enable  a  reader 
of  history  to  conjecture  with  sufficient  accuracy  whether  the 
details,  if  referred  to,  would,  on  any  given  occasion,  be  of 
importance. 

General  impressions  are  sufficient  to  prevent  us  from  making 


12  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

positive  mistakes  ourselves,  and  even  from  suffering  them  to 
be  made  by  others.  We  are  aware  that  there  is  something 
which  we  have  read  on  the  point  at  issue,  though  we  do  not 
precisely  recollect  it.  But  the  apprehension  that  is  left  on 
the  mind,  obscure  and  imperfect  as  it  may  be,  still  suffers  a 
sort  of  violence,  when  any  statement  positively  inaccurate  is 
presented  to  it.  We  at  least  suspend  our  judgment.  We  re- 
quire that  the  question  may  not  be  determined  till  after  proper 
examination. 

General  impressions,  indeed,  will  not  furnish  a  reasoner  in 
conversation,  an  advocate  at  the  bar,  or  a  debater  in  parlia- 
ment, with  proper  authorities,  at  the  very  moment  of  need,  to 
establish  his  statements  and  illustrate  his  arguments  ;  or  with 
all  the  proper  materials  of  wit  and  eloquence.  A  weak  memory 
can  never  afford  to  its  possessor  the  advantages  which  result 
from  a  memory  capacious  and  retentive  ;  yet  may  it  still  be  very 
adequate,  by  careful  management,  to  many  of  the  most  useful 
purposes  of  reflection  and  study  ;  it  may  still  enable  a  man  to 
benefit  himself  and  to  administer  to  the  instruction  of  others. 

And  now,  before  I  turn  away  from  this  particular  part  of 
my  prefatory  address,  I  must  confess  to  you,  that,  after  all  the 
expedients  I  have  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  abridging  your 
labors,  I  am  well  aware  that  many  of  you  will  still  be  disheart- 
ened and  repelled  by  the  number  of  books  which  you  will 
hear  me  quote  and  refer  to,  before  my  lectures  are  brought  to 
a  conclusion. 

I  must,  therefore,  enter  still  further  into  detail,  and  call  your 
attention  to  the  syllabus  which  I  have  drawn  up,  and  which  you 
can  hereafter  consult. 

You  will  there  observe,  in  the  first  place,  a  course  of  read- 
ing pointed  out  so  short,  that  it  would  be  quite  improper  to 
suppose  that  the  most  indolent  or  the  most  busy  among  you 
cannot  now  or  hereafter  accomplish  it.  This  first  course,  as 
you  will  see  by  attending  to  the  notes,  may  be  enlarged  into  a 
second.  This  again  into  a  third. 

In  this  manner  I  have  endeavoured  to  provide  for  every 
different  case  that  may  exist  among  you.  You  have  three 
different  courses  exhibited  to  you. 

But  with  respect  to  the  remainder  of  the  syllabus  and  the 
number  of  books  mentioned  in  the  lectures,  which  may  be 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  13 

considered  as  the  fourth  and  last  course,  you  will  see,  on  a 
little  reflection,  that  it  is  fit  you  should  not  only  read  any 
particular  shorter  course,  but  hear  and  understand  what  may 
be  found  in  one  still  larger,  even  if  you  should  not  be  likely 
hereafter  to  attempt  it. 

Your  time  will  not  be  entirely  thrown  away  while  you  are 
listening  to  the  references  I  make  and  the  descriptions  I  give, 
even  though  you  should  not  always  turn  to  the  particular 
books  and  passages  I  thus  recommend.  You  will  at  least 
know,  after  a  certain  indistinct  manner,  what  history  is,  and 
this  is  the  great  use  of  all  public  lectures  ;  for  public  lectures 
may  give  you  a  general  idea  of  any  science  or  subject,  but 
can  never,  of  themselves,  do  much  more, — they  can  never 
put  you  in  possession  of  it.  Add  to  this,  that  of  the  whole  of 
this  last  and  most  extended  course,  thus  presented  in  these 
lectures  to  your  curiosity,  you  may  read  minutely  any  parts 
that  may  more  particularly  interest  you  and  not  others  ; 
the  Reformation,  for  instance,  or  the  great  struggle  in  the 
times  of  Charles  the  First.  Do  not,  therefore,  be  alarmed, 
any  of  you,  when  you  see  and  hear  the  number  of  books  I  may 
refer  you  to. 

Finally,  I  must  take  upon  myself  to  assure  you,  that  if  you 
show  the  syllabus  to  any  man  of  letters,  or  any  real  student  of 
the  history  of  this  or  other  countries,  you  will  hear  him  only 
expressing  his  surprise  that  such  and  such  books,  which  he  will 
mention,  are  omitted,  and  that  such  and  such  portions  of  his- 
tory (of  India,  for  instance,  or  Ireland)  are  not  even  so  much 
as  alluded  to.  Believe  me,  he  will  not  blame  your  lecturer  for 
having  offered  too  much  to  your  curiosity.  He  will  rather  sup- 
pose him  not  sufficiently  aware  of  all  the  proper  objects  of  his- 
torical inquiry.  Men  of  letters  and  real  statesmen  never  cease 
to  read  history,  as  they  never  cease  to  occupy  themselves  in 
every  different  department  of  elegant  and  useful  literature. 
Reading  and  reflection  become  with  them  a  business  and  a 
pleasure,  ceasing  but  with  their  lives. 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  give  you  some  idea  of  the 
object  of  these  lectures,  and  the  general  manner  in  which  they 
are  to  be  conducted,  I  must  now  say  a  word  with  respect  to 
their  extent. 

It  had  not  been  my  original  intention  to  bring  them  down 


14  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

lower  than  the  breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution  ;  at  that 
memorable  period,  modern  history  appeared  to  begin  anew, 
and  I  long  remained  in  the  persuasion  that  my  successors,  not 
to  speak  of  myself,  would  for  some  time  scarcely  find  it 
within  their  competence  to  undertake  an  estimate  of  this 
tremendous  event,  —  its  origin,  its  progress,  and  its  conse- 
quences. 

I  had  therefore  always  bounded  my  plan  by  the  American 
Revolution  ;  and,  after  executing  what  I  had  thus  proposed  to 
myself  as  a  proper  object  of  my  labor,  I  remained  for  some 
few  years  without  making  any  further  attempt.  At  last  I 
thought  it  my  duty  to  endeavour  to  go  on.  But,  even  in  exe- 
cuting my  first  original  plan,  my  progress  was  slow. 

I  had  many  books  to  read  and  examine,  to  ascertain  whether 
they  were  to  be  recommended  or  not,  whether  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, whether  at  all. 

Much  of  my  labor  can  never  appear  in  any  positive  shape, 
and  will  chiefly  operate  in  saving  my  hearers  from  that  very 
occupation  of  time,  which  has  so  interrupted  the  advance  of 
my  own  exertions. 

I  may  point  out  to  others,  as  paths  to  be  avoided,  paths 
where  I  have  myself  wandered  in  vain,  and  from  whence  I  have 
returned  fatigued  and  disappointed. 

Thus  much  with  respect  to  the  object,  the  method,  and  the 
extent  of  my  lectures. 

And  now  I  must  call  the  attention  of  my  hearers  to  a  diffi- 
culty which  belongs  to  all  public  lectures  en  history,  and  which 
I  conceive  to  be  of  considerable  importance.  It  is  this.  A 
lecturer  must  refer  sometimes  to  books  which  have  not  been 
read  at  all  by  his  hearers  ;  and  perpetually  to  those  that  have 
not  been  read  lately,  or  with  very  minute  attention.  He 
must  presuppose  a  knowledge  which  has  not  been  acquired,  or 
not  retained.  He  must,  therefore,  often  make  remarks  which 
cannot  be  judged  of,  —  deliver  sentiments  and  opinions  which 
must  necessarily  be  unintelligible, — and  make  frequent  allu- 
sions which  cannot  be  felt  or  comprehended  by  those  whom 
he  addresses.  The  truth  is,  that  a  lecturer  arranges  and  writes 
down  what  he  has  to  deliver  while  full  of  his  subject,  with 
all  the  information  he  can  collect  fresh  and  present  to  his 
mind  ;  and  he  then  approaches  his  hearers,  who  have  in  the 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  15 

mean  time  undertaken  no  labor  of  the  kind,  and  are  fur- 
nished with  no  equal  advantages.  The  lecturer  is  in  one 
situation,  and  the  hearer  in  another.  And  this  is  the  reason 
why  lectures  on  the  subject  of  history  must  always  be  found,  at 
the  time  of  delivery,  more  or  less  inefficient,  and,  therefore, 
unsatisfactory  ;  why  they  must  be  even  listened  to  with  diffi- 
culty, certainly  not  without  an  almost  continued  effort  of  gra- 
tuitous attention.  I  by  no  means  suppose  that  I  have  avoided 
this  very  serious  difficulty  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  one  which 
must  belong  to  every  system  of  lectures  ;  and  which  I  con- 
ceive both  rny  hearers  and  myself  will  have  constantly  to  strug- 
gle with. 

I  have  selected,  for  instance,  different  books,  and  different 
parts  of  the  same  book,  for  the  student's  consideration  :  and 
the  reasons  of  my  preference,  though  I  give  them,  cannot  be 
estimated  by  my  hearers,  till  the  references  I  propose  have 
been  made.  Again,  I  have  directed  my  attention  more 
particularly  to  some  portions  of  the  history  of  Europe  than  to 
others  ;  but,  while  I  am  delivering  those  general  remarks  to 
which  they  have  given  occasion  in  my  own  rnind,  I  cannot  sup- 
pose that  the  details  on  which  those  remarks  are  founded  can 
be  present  to  my  hearers  ;  or,  therefore,  that  my  remarks  can 
properly  be  understood  :  the  details  not  being  known,  the  in- 
terest which  such  details  have  excited  in  me,  can  never  be 
conveyed  by  me  to  those  who  hear  me  ;  for  it  is  only  by  the 
actual  perusal  of  circumstances  and  facts  that  interest  can  be 
excited  :  curiosity,  indeed,  may  be  raised  by  a  general  descrip- 
tion, but  little  more. 

Add  to  this,  that  when  any  particular  topic  connected  with 
history,  or  any  particular  period  in  the  history  of  any  country, 
has  been  well  considered  by  any  writer  or  historian,  I  have 
thought  it  better  to  refer  to  the  author  than  to  incorporate  his 
observations  into  my  own  lectures.  A  blank  will  therefore 
be  repeatedly  left,  as  I  proceed,  in  the  mind  of  my  hearer, 
though  it  may  have  been  rilled  up  in  my  own  ;  and  this  interval 
in  the  train  of  events  or  topics  presented  to  him  must  remain 
unoccupied,  and  the  whole  chain  be  left  imperfect,  till  all  the 
different  links  have  been  regularly  supplied  by  his  own  subse- 
quent diligence. 

Inconveniences  like  these  I  have  found  myself  totally  unable 


16  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

to  remedy  ;  and  as  they  will  operate  as  unfavorably  to  me  as 
to  you,  we  must  each  be  content  to  compound  with  them  in 
the  best  manner  we  can,  and  limit  our  mutual  expectations  to 
what  is  practicable:  — such  attention  as  you  can  furnish,  I 
must  be  happy  to  receive  ;  and  you  must  on  your  part  endeav- 
our to  listen  to  me,  on  the  supposition  that  what  you  hear, 
whether  now  entirely  comprehended  or  not,  will  be  applicable, 
if  remembered,  to  your  own  reading  hereafter,  and  therefore 
possibly  of  benefit. 

There  is  one  point,  however,  which  is  so  material,  that, 
though  I  have  alluded  to  it  before,  I  must  again  recall  it  to 
your  attention.  It  is  this,  — that  my  hearers  are  not  to  resort 
to  me  to  receive  historical  knowledge,  but  to  receive  hints  that 
may  be  of  use  to  them  while  they  are  endeavouring  to  acquire 
it  for  themselves.  The  great  use,  end,  and  triumph  of  all  lee* 
tures  is  to  excite  and  teach  the  hearer  to  become  afterwards  a 
lecturer  to  himself,  —  to  facilitate  his  progress,  perhaps  to 
shorten  his  course,  —  to  amplify  his  views,  —  to  make  him 
advance  to  a  subject,  if  possible,  in  the  united  character  of  a 
master  and  a  scholar.  A  hearer  is  not  to  sit  passive,  and  to 
expect  to  see  performed  for  him  those  tasks  which  he  can  only 
perform  for  himself.  It  is  from  a  mistake  of  this  nature  that 
they  who  attend  public  lectures  often  retire  from  them  with 
strong  sensations  of  disappointment.  They  have  sought  im- 
possibilities. They  who  listen  to  lectures  must  be  content  to 
become  wise,  as  men  can  only  become  wise,  — by  the  exercise, 
—  the  discipline,  —  the  warfare,  and  the  fatigue  of  their  own 
faculties,  amid  labors  to  be  endured,  and  difficulties  to  be  sur- 
mounted. The  temple  of  wisdom,  like  that  of  virtue,  must 
be  placed  on  an  eminence. 

Having  now  endeavoured  to  explain  the  design,  —  the 
method,  —  and  the  extent  of  my  lectures,  and  to  state  the 
difficulties  which  my  hearer  and  myself  will  have  mutually  to 
encounter,  it  may  be  necessary  to  make  some  observations  on 
the  end  and  use,  not  indeed  of  lectures  in  history,  but  of  history 
itself. 

Curiosity  is  natural,  and  therefore  history  will  be  always 
read  ;  and,  as  he  who  has  any  thing  to  relate  becomes  imme- 
diately of  importance  to  others  and  to  himself,  history  will  be 
always  written. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  17 

History  is  a  source  of  pleasure  ;  a  piece  of  history  is  at 
least  a  sort  of  superior  novel ;  it  is  at  least  a  story,  and  often  a 
busy  one  ;  it  has  its  heroes  and  its  catastrophes  ;  it  can  engage 
attention,  and,  though  wanting  in  that  force  and  variety  and 
agitation  of  passion,  which  a  work  of  imagination  can  exhibit, 
still,  as  it  is  founded  in  truth,  it  can  in  this  manner  compensate 
for  the  calmer  nature  of  its  materials,  and  has  always  been 
found  capable  of  administering  amusement  even  to  the  most 
thoughtless  and  uninformed. 

But  as  others  will  read,  when  even  the  thoughtless  read,  and 
as  history  is  generally  read  in  early  life,  it  has  always  been  one 
instrument,  among  others,  of  education  ;  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  that  the  whole  character  of  the  European  nations  would 
have  been  totally  different,  if  the  classic  histories  of  antiquity 
had  not  come  down  to  them  ;  and  if  their  youth  had  not  been, 
through  every  succeeding  generation,  animated  and  inspired  by 
the  examples  which  are  there  displayed  of  integrity  and  patri- 
otism, of  eloquence  and  valor. 

But  every  nation  has  also  its  particular  annals  and  its  own 
models  of  heroism  and  genius. 

The  political  influence  of  history  may,  therefore,  often  be 
of  inestimable  value  :  it  may  tell  a  people  of  their  ancestors, 
of  their  freedom  and  renown,  their  honorable  struggles,  sacri- 
fices, and  success  ;  and  it  may  warn  them  not  to  render  use- 
less, by  their  own  degeneracy,  the  elevated  virtues  of  those, 
who  went  before  them. 

But  history  may  do  more  than  this  ;  it  may  exhibit  to  a 
people  the  rallying  points  of  their  constitution,  the  fortresses 
and  strong  holds  of  their  political  happiness  ;  and  it  may 
teach  them  a  sort  of  wisdom  unbought  by  their  own  dreadful 
experience,  a  sort  of  wisdom  which  shall  operate,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  need,  with  all  the  rapidity  and  force  and  accuracy  of 
instinct. 

History  is  of  high  moral  importance  ;  for  the  wise,  the 
good,  and  the  brave  can  thus  anticipate  and  enjoy  the  praise 
of  ages  that  are  unborn,  and  be  excited  to  the  performance  of 
actions,  which  they  might  not  otherwise  have  even  conceived. 

It  is  probable,  too,  that  men  of  bad  passions,  and  certainly 
men  of  doubtful  character,  are  sometimes  checked  by  the 
prospect  of  that  awful  censure  which  they  must  endure,  that 

VOL.    I.  3 


18  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

lasting  reproach  and  detestation  with  which  their  memories 
must  be  hereafter  loaded  by  the  inevitable  judgments  of  man- 
kind. 

Undoubtedly,  too,  the  man  of  injured  innocence,  the  man  of 
insulted  merit,  has  invariably  reposed  himself  with  confidence 
on  the  future  justice  of  the  historian  ;  has  often  spoken  peace 
to  his  indignant  and  afflicted  spirit,  by  dwelling  in  imagination 
on  the  refuge,  which  was  thus  to  be  afforded  him,  even  on  the 
theatre  of  this  world,  from  the  tyranny  of  fortune  or  the  wrongs 
of  the  oppressor. 

These  are  services  to  mankind  above  all  price,  and  the  muse 
of  history  has  ever  been  of  saintly  aspect  and  awful  form  ;  the 
guardian  of  the  virtues  of  humanity. 

There  are  other  important  purposes  to  which  history  may  be 
made  subservient. 

Unless  the  past  be  known,  the  present  cannot  be  under- 
stood ;  records,  therefore,  and  memorials  often  form  a  very 
material  part  of  professional  study. 

To  the  philosopher,  history  is  a  faithful  mirror,  which  re- 
flects to  him  the  human  character  under  every  possible  variety 
of  situation  and  color,  and  thus  furnishes  him  with  the  means 
of  amplifying  and  confirming  the  knowledge  of  our  common 
nature. 

But  history  also  exhibits  to  the  philosopher  the  conduct 
and  fortunes  of  mankind  continued  through  many  ages,  and 
it  therefore  enables  him  to  trace  the  operation  of  events,  to 
see  the  connexion  of  causes  and  effects,  and  to  establish  those 
general  principles,  which  may  be  considered  by  the  states- 
man, if  not  as  axioms,  as  the  best  guides,  at  least,  that  can  be 
found,  for  his  conduct,  in  his  management  of  the  affairs  of 
mankind. 

It  is  the  misfortune  in  general  of  the  man  of  reflection,  and 
always  of  the  intelligent  statesman,  that  he  has  to  combat  with 
the  prejudices  of  those  around  him,  and  as  arguments  can  be 
always  produced,  on  each  side  of  a  question,  while  he  has  only 
reasoning  to  oppose  to  reasoning,  he  is  little  likely  to  succeed  ; 
but  an  example  properly  made  out  from  history  assumes  the 
appearance  of  a  fact,  and  embarrasses  and  silences  opposition, 
till  all  further  resistance  is  at  length,  in  some  succeeding  gen- 
eration, withdrawn.  It  is  thus  that  a  Montesquieu,  a  Smith, 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  19 

or  a  Hume,  by  their  application  of  general  principles,  exempli- 
fied by  facts,  to  systems  of  national  policy,  may  be  sometimes 
enabled,  however  slowly,  to  expand  and  rectify  the  contracted 
and  unwilling  understandings  of  mankind. 

Such  are  the  uses  of  history,  the  uses  which  it  has  always 
served. 

There  are  others  to  which  it  might  be  made  subservient. 

It  might  teach  lessons  of  moderation  to  governments,  and 
when  the  lesson  is  somewhat  closely  presented,  it  sometimes 
does  ;  but  cabinets  are  successive  collections  of  men  whose 
personal  experience  has  not  been  long  continued  ;  and  they 
therefore  act  too  often  with  the  blind  passions  of  an  individual, 
and  are  so  habituated  to  temporary  expedients,  to  making  pro- 
vision for  the  day  which  is  going  over  them,  and  to  the  rough 
management  of  mankind,  that  when  they  are  approached  by 
the  man  of  reflection  and  prospective  wisdom,  they  are  not 
sufficiently  disposed  to  listen  to  what  he  has  to  suggest  or  to 
object  ;  they  are  too  apt  to  dismiss  with  little  ceremony  his 
admonitions  and  his  plans  ;  and,  when  they  speak  of  them,  it 
is,  for  the  most  part,  in  some  language  of  their  own,  under 
some  general  appellation  of  "  theory  and  nonsense,"  or  per- 
haps of  "  metaphysics." 

History,  by  its  general  portraits  of  different  states  and 
kingdoms,  might  teach  any  particular  people  the  infinite  di- 
versity of  human  characters  and  opinions,  and  inspire  them 
with  sentiments  of  general  kindness  and  toleration  abroad  and 
at  home. 

But  history  is,  on  the  contrary,  generally  converted  by  a 
people  to  the  purpose  of  perpetuating  religious  or  political  dis- 
sensions, and  of  hardening  those  antipathies  which  it  should 
rather  remove  or  soften  ;  its  examples  are  appealed  to  ;  the 
characters  of  offence  and  blood,  that  were  obliterated  or  grown 
faint  by  age,  are  traced  out  and  colored  anew  ;  and  it  is  for- 
gotten, that  such  unhappy  animosities  have  no  longer  any  proper 
object  or  reasonable  excuse. 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  give  some  general  idea  of  the 
purposes  and  value  of  history,  it  is  necessary,  before  I  con- 
clude, to  observe,  that  there  is  one  objection  to  history,  too 
imposing  and  too  weighty  not  to  be  alluded  to  and  examined. 
It  is  no  other  than  this  :  that  history,  after  all,  is  not  truth  ; 


20  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

that  it  neither  is  nor  ever  can  be  ;  that  the  affairs  of  the  world 
are  carried  on  by  a  machinery  known  only  to  the  real  actors  in 
the  scene,  the  rulers  of  kingdoms  and  the  ministers  of  cabinets, 
—  a  machinery  which  must  for  ever  be  concealed  from  the  ob- 
servation of  the  public  ;  particularly  of  historians,  men  of  study 
and  retirement,  who  know  nothing  of  that  business  of  the 
world,  which  they  are  so  ready  to  describe  and  to  explain. 

This  is  not  unfrequently  the  language  of  ministers  them- 
selves, at  least  of  those  who  are  somewhat  of  an  ordinary 
cast, — practical  men,  as  they  are  called  ;  more  distinguished 
for  their  talents  in  the  despatch  of  business  than  for  their 
genius.  "  Do  not  read  history  to  me,"  said  Sir  Robert  Wai- 
pole,  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  them  —  (his  son,  it  seems, 
had  hoped,  in  this  manner,  to  amuse  the  languor  of  a  man, 
who,  because  he  was  no  longer  in  office,  knew  not  how  to  em- 
ploy himself),  —  u  Do  not  read  history,  for  that  I  know  must 
be  false." 

Lord  Bolingbroke,  on  the  contrary,  a  statesman  also,  writes 
letters  in  his  retirement  on  the  study  and  use  of  history,  and 
even  discusses  the  very  point  before  us,  and  maintains  the 
credibility  of  history. 

Ministers,  like  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  may  on  these  occasions 
be  not  a  little  suspected  of  something  like  affectation  ;  of  being 
dupes  to  their  art.  Our  own  king,  James  the  First,  wras  the 
most  egregious  pedant  of  this  kind  on  record  ;  the  mysteries 
of  his  state-craft,  as  he  called  it,  were  deemed  by  him  to  be 
so  profound,  that  they  were  not  to  be  comprehended  even  by 
the  houses  of  parliament  or  men  of  any  ordinary  nature  ;  and 
Walpole  himself  might  have  been  thought  by  this  royal  trifler, 
as  unfit,  as  the  historian  was  thought  by  Walpole,  to  penetrate 
into  the  secrets  of  the  world. 

The  short  state  of  the  question  seems  to  be,  that  history 
consists  of  the  narrative  of  facts,  and  of  explanations  of  those 
facts,  - — that  the  facts  and  events  are  points  which  are  perfectly 
ascertainable  ;  nor  will  this  indeed  be  denied,  —  but  with  re- 
spect to  the  explanations,  how  the  events  related  came  actually 
to  take  place,  points  of  this  kind  must  be  always  matters  of 
investigation,  to  be  traced  out  by  the  same  processes  of 
reasoning,  which  are  applied  on  all  similar  occasions  through 
life  ;  from  a  comparison  of  events  and  of  appearances  with 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  21 

the  acknowledged  principles  of  human  actions.  Mistakes  may 
sometimes  be  made  (as  by  juries  on  a  trial),  but  this  is  not 
a  sufficient  reason  for  concluding  that  no  judgment  can  be 
formed. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  in  general,  that  explanations  always 
can  be  given,  or  never  can  be  given  ;  each  particular  point  be- 
comes a  particular  question,  to  be  decided  on  by  its  own  mer- 
its ;  in  every  instance  the  proper  inquiry  is,  whether  the  expla- 
nation offered  be  or  be  not  sufficient. 

Historians  have  always  affected,  and  have  generally  exer- 
cised, great  circumspection  in  their  decisions.  It  must  be 
remembered  what  the  merits  of  an  historian  are  supposed  to 
be  ;  not  eloquence,  not  imagination,  not  science,  —  but  pa- 
tience, discrimination,  and  caution,  —  diligence  in  amassing  his 
materials,  strict  impartiality  in  displaying  them,  sound  judgment 
in  deciding  upon  them. 

Mankind  endeavour,  in  the  same  manner,  to  judge,  in  their 
turn,  upon  their  historians  ;  their  sources  of  intelligence,  their 
industry,  their  candor,  their  good  sense,  —  all  these  become 
the  subjects  of  the  public  criticism  ;  and  at  last  a  decision 
is  pronounced,  a  decision  that  is  not  likely  to  be  ultimately 
wrong. 

It  is  not  pretended,  that  history,  if  written  at  the  time,  can 
be  in  all  points  depended  upon  ;  or  that  truth  can  become 
entirely  visible  till  some  interval  has  elapsed,  and  the  various 
causes,  that  are  always  operating  to  produce  the  discovery  of 
it,  have  had  full  opportunity  to  act. 

And  lastly,  there  are  facts  and  events  that  have  occurred  in 
the  world,  of  which  history  does  not  undertake  to  give  any 
solution  :  and  historical  writers  are  certainly  not  guilty  of  the 
folly  of  professing  to  explain  every  thing. 

Were  one  of  these  ordinary  ministers  to  be  asked  what 
means  they  always  employed  in  the  management  of  mankind, 
they  would  answer,  without  hesitation,  their  leading  interests 
and  passions  ;  and  they  would  laugh  at  any  of  their  associates 
in  a  cabinet  who  depended  upon  the  more  delicate  principles 
of  individual  character. 

Would  it  not  be  strange,  then,  that  such  leading  interests  and 
passions,  as  they  have  made  use  of,  should  not  be  afterwards 
visible  to  the  eyes  of  an  historian  ?  Are  they  not  themselves, 


22  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

though  sitting  in  a  cabinet,  collections  of  men,  influenced  by 
their  own  leading  interests  and  passions,  like  their  fellow- 
mortals  without  ?  How  are  these,  in  like  manner,  to  remain 
for  ever  impenetrable  and  unintelligible  ? 

Finally,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  writers  of  history  are 
by  no  means  to  be  considered  as  excluded  from  all  knowledge 
of  those  petty  intrigues,  on  which  so  much  is  supposed  to  de- 
pend ;  private  memoirs  and  the  letters  of  actors  in  the  scene 
are  very  often  referred  to  by  historians,  —  they  are  sought  for 
with  diligence,  they  are  always  thoroughly  sifted  and  examined. 
In  the  course  of  half  a  century  after  the  events,  the  public  are 
generally  put  into  possession  of  such  documents  as  even  the 
objectors  to  history  ought  to  think  sufficient  to  explain  the 
mysterie  sof  intrigue,  and,  therefore,  even  in  their  view  of  the 
subject,  the  transactions  of  the  world. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  to  call  history  a  romance,  and  to 
say  that  it  must  necessarily  be  false,  is  to  confound  all  distinc- 
tions of  human  testimony,  criticism,  and  judgment :  sweeping 
positions  of  this  kind  occur  in  other  subjects  as  well  as  this  of 
the  study  of  history  ;  and,  after  a  little  examination,  may  quietly 
be  dismissed,  as  the  offspring  of  indolence  or  spleen  ;  or 
that  love  of  paradox,  which  may  sometimes  assist  the  sagacity, 
but  more  often  misleads  the  decisions-  of  the  understand- 
ing. 

One  word  more  in  reference  to  this  objection,  and  I  have 
done.  Something  may,  perhaps,  be  conceded  to  it. 

It  is  always  difficult  to  estimate,  with  perfect  accuracy,  the 
moral  characters  of  men  ;  i.  e.  to  compare  exactly  the  temp- 
tation that  has  been  incurred  with  the  resistance  that  has 
been  made,  —  the  precise  motives  of  the  agent  with  his  actual 
conduct. 

And  this,  which  is  so  true  in  private  life,  may  be  still 
more  so  in  public.  It  may  not  be  always  easy  to  determine, 
in  a  minister  or  a  party,  what  there  was  of  mistake,  what  of 
good  intention,  what  of  uncontrollable  necessity,  in  their  appar- 
ent faults. 

It  may  be  allowed,  therefore,  that  the  moral  characters  of 
statesmen  may  not  always  be  exactly  estimated  :  but  it  must  be 
observed,  at  the  same  time,  that  in  many  instances  these  moral 
characters  are  appreciated  differently  by  different  historians, 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  23 

and  are  confessedly  a  subject  of  historical  difficulty.  That 
here,  therefore,  no  mistake  is  made  ;  and  that  mankind,  though 
very  likely  to  praise  or  censure  too  vehemently  at  first,  are  not 
likely  to  be  materially  inaccurate  at  last. 

Add  to  this,  that  statesmen,  who  perceive  that  their  conduct 
may  hereafter  be  liable  to  misrepresentation,  have  it  always  in 
their  power,  and  have  in  general  been  induced,  to  leave  docu- 
ments to  their  family  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  their  views, 
and  justifying  their  measures  ;  and  as  they  know  beforehand 
the  nature  of  that  tribunal  of  posterity,  which  is  to  determine 
on  their  merits,  the  conclusion  is,  if  they  refuse  to  plead,  that 
they  foresee  a  verdict,  against  which  they  have  nothing  satis- 
factory to  urge,  and  which  is  therefore  right. 

But  I  must  now  conclude. 

Many  years  that  preceded,  and  many  that  followed,  the 
first  opening  of  these  lectures,  in  1809,  were  years  of  such 
unexampled,  afflicting,  and  awful  events,  the  progress  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  power  of  Bonaparte,  that  the 
mind  was  kept  too  agitated  and  too  anxious  to  be  properly 
at  leisure  for  the  ordinary  sympathies  of  peaceful  study.  This 
effect  had  been  more  particularly  felt  by  those  who  were  to 
read  history.  Who  could  be  interested  about  the  German 
constitution,  when  it  was  no  more  ?  about  the  republics  of 
Holland  or  of  Italy,  when  they  had  perished  ?  Who  could 
turn  to  the  muse  of  history,  when  she  seemed  to  have  lost  her 
proper  character;  not  fitted,  as  she  once  had  been,  to  show  us 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  them,  but  rath- 
er, like  the  sibyl,  to  conduct  us  to  the  land  of  shades,  to  a 
world  that  could  no  longer  be  thought  our  own  ?  I  need  no 
longer  endeavour  to  fortify  my  hearers  against  the  langour  and 
the  very  distaste  for  history  which  circumstances  so  melancholy 
were  fitted  to  produce. 

But  the  leading  remark  which  I  then  made,  I  may  still  retain. 
It  was  this  :  — 

That,  though  the  more  minute  peculiarities  of  history  may 
cease  to  engage  our  attention,  its  graver  subjects  may  have 
now,  more  than  ever,  a  claim  upon  our  powers  of  reflection 
and  inquiry.  History  may  have  less  of  amusement  for  our 
leisure,  but  may  offer  much  more  of  instruction  for  our  active 
thoughts.  The  mere  relator  of  events  may  be  now  less  fitted 


24  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

to  detain  us  with  his  details  ;  but  to  the  philosophic  historian 
we  shall  henceforward  be  compelled  to  listen  with  a  new  and 
deeper  anxiety.  If  history  be  the  school  of  mankind,  it  must 
be  confessed,  that  its  lessons  are  at  length  but  too  complete  ; 
and  that  states  and  empires  may  now  be  considered  in  all  their 
positions  and  relations,  from  the  commencement  to  the  termi- 
nation of  their  political  existence.  We  may  see  what  have 
been  the  causes  of  their  prosperity  ;  we  may  trace  the  steps 
by  which  they  have  descended  to  degradation  and  ruin. 

The  truth  is,  that  these  tremendous  years  have  made  such 
studies  as  we  are  now  to  engage  in,  considered  in  this  point  of 
view,  of  far  more  than  ordinary  importance  ;  and,  whether  we 
consider  the  situation  of  the  world,  or  of  our  own  domestic 
polity,  it  is  but  too  plain  that  neither  indolence  nor  ignorance 
can  be  any  longer  admitted  in  our  young  men  of  education  and 
property  ;  it  is  but  too  plain  that  political  mistakes,  at  all  times 
dangerous,  may  to  us  be  fatal  ;  it  is  quite  impossible  to  say 
how  much  may  not  depend  on  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of 
the  rising  generation. 

NOTE. 

THE  professorship  of  modern  history  and  languages  was  founded  by  George 
the  First,  in  1724,  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle. 

His  Grace  has  the  merit  of  being  one  of  those  very  few  ministers,  since 
the  times  of  the  Reformation,  who  have  endeavoured  to  amplify  the  means 
and  extend  the  usefulness  of  the  literary  establishments  of  this  country. 

On  the  death  of  Dr.  Turner,  in  1762,  the  professorship  became  vacant,  and 
the  modesty  and  pride  of  Gray  at  last  yielded  to  the  influence  of  his  friends, 
and  he  applied  to  Lord  Bute  for  the  situation.  It  was,  however,  given  to  the 
tutor  of  Sir  James  Lowther ;  and  the  most  distinguished  man  of  letters  then 
in  the  university,  and  perhaps  the  most  elegant  scholar  of  the  age,  was  left 
to  his  poverty,  or  to  a  state  that  but  too  much  resembled  it. 

At  a  subsequent  period,  while  he  was  still  pursuing  "  the  silent  tenor  of  his 
doom,"  the  professorship  was  once  more  vacant.  It  must  ever  have  been 
amongst  the  most  pleasing  recollections  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  that  he  was 
the  minister  whose  fortune  it  was  to  have  directed  the  rays  of  royal  bounty 
to  their  noblest  object,  and  to  have  cheered,  with  a  parting  gleam,  the  twilight 
path  and  closing  hours  of  the  poet  Gray. 

His  Grace  had  a  second  time  the  merit  of  making  an  honorable  choice  in 
the  late  professor,  Dr.  Symonds.  From  him  the  chair  has  received  a  very 
valuable  library.  But  it  is  to  be  lamented,  that,  a  little  before  his  death,  he 
destroyed  the  lectures  he  had  delivered,  and  all  his  historical  papers. 


LECTURE    I. 

1809. 

BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS. 

OF  the  ancient  world  we  derive  our  knowledge  from  the 
sacred  Scriptures  and  the  writings  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
We  have  no  other  sources  of  information  on  which  we  can 
well  depend  ;  but  every  such  information  must  be  at  all  times 
interesting.  There  is  no  nation,  however  removed  from  us  by 
distance  or  by  time,  whose  history  will  not  be  always  a  subject 
of  rational  curiosity  to  a  reflecting  mind  :  yet  the  student  of 
ancient  history  will  find  his  attention  irresistibly  drawn  to  three 
particular  nations,  —  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  Jews  : 
these  are  names  for  ever  associated  with  our  best  feelings  and 
our  first  interests  :  the  poets  and  the  orators,  the  sages  and 
the  heroes  of  Greece  and  Rome  still  animate  our  imaginations 
and  instruct  our  minds  ;  and  the  law-giver  of  Israel  led  his 
people  from  Egypt  to  give  birth  to  the  prophets  of  our  religion, 
and,  when  the  fulness  of  time  was  come,  to  the  SAVIOUR  of 
the  world. 

Ancient  history  is  not  excluded  :  a  knowledge  of  it  is 
presupposed  in  the  study  of  modern  history  ;  a  knowledge, 
at  least,  of  those  events,  which  can  now  be  ascertained,  and 
of  those  nations  more  particularly  whose  taste,  philosophy, 
and  religion  are  still  visible  in  our  own.  Ancient  history  at 
last  conducts  us  to  the  exclusive  consideration  of  the  Romans. 
Rome  is  the  only  figure  left  in  the  foreground  of  the  picture  ; 
but  in  the  distance  are  seen  the  northern  nations,  who  are  now 
to  come  forward  and  to  share  with  the  Romans  our  curiosity 
and  attention. 

These  nations  had  already  been  but  too  well  known  to  the 
Roman  people.  They  had  destroyed  five  consular  armies, — 
encountered  Marius,  —  contended  with  Julius  Caesar,  —  annihi- 

VOL.  i.  4 


26  ,  LECTURE  I. 

lated  Varus  and  his  three  legions,  and  given  the  title  of  Ger- 
manicus  to  the  first  Roman  of  his  age. 

In  the  time  of  Marcus  Antoninus  a  general  union  was 
formed  by  the  Barbarians,  and  they  were  not  subdued  till  after 
a  long  and  doubtful  conflict. 

About  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  under  the  reign  of 
Valerian  and  Gallienus,  they  began  everywhere  to  press  for- 
ward, and  were  seen  fairly  struggling  with  the  Romans  for  the 
empire  of  Europe. 

Here,  then,  we  are  to  make  our  first  pause  ;  we  are  to  stop 
and  reflect  upon  the  scene  before  us.  We  have  the  civilized 
and  uncivilized  portions  of  the  world  contending,  —  we  have 
the  two  great  divisions  of  mankind,  which  then  existed,  drawn 
up  in  array.  What  were  the  exact  characters  of  each?  — 
which  was  likely  to  prevail  ?  —  what  was  to  be  the  result  of 
this  strange  and  tremendous  collision  ?  These  are  the  great 
questions  that  occur  at  this  remarkable  juncture,  at  this  critical 
interval  between  the  ancient  and  modern  history  of  the  Euro- 
pean nations.  We  are  not  without  our  means  of  inquiry 
into  this  interesting  subject.  We  will  take  each  of  these 
questions  in  their  order.  1st,  What  were  the  exact  characters 
of  the  Barbarians  and  the  Romans  at  this  extraordinary  crisis  ? 
With  respect  to  the  Barbarians,  —  fortunately  for  us  they  fell 
under  the  observation  first  of  one  of  the  most  celebrated  men, 
and  afterwards  of  one  of  the  most  celebrated  writers  of  an- 
tiquity, —  of  Caesar  and  of  Tacitus  :  to  them  we  must  refer. 
I  will  say  a  word  of  each  in  their  order.  The  Commentaries 
of  Caesar  must  be  consulted,  not  only  in  the  sixth  book, 
but  in  the  first  and  fourth.  And  here  I  must  observe,  that, 
though  the  Celts  or  Gauls  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
Gothic  nations,  who  finally  overran  the  Roman  Empire,  still 
there  is  not  a  part  of  the  work  that  is  not  connected  with 
the  general  subject  ;  the  whole  is  a  picture  of  the  two  great 
portions  into  which  mankind  might  be  then  divided  (the 
civilized  and  the  barbarians),  while  it  professes  to  be  only 
an  account  of  the  campaigns  of  Caesar  in  Gaul.  I  will  cite 
an  example  or  two  ;  and  I  do  this  the  more  readily,  and  the 
more  at  length,  that  I  may,  as  early  as  possible,  and  as  strongly 
as  possible,  enforce  upon  the  minds  of  my  hearers  the  follow- 
ing remark  :  —  that  there  is  nothing  of  so  much  consequence 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  27 

to  the  reader  of  history,  as  to  acquire  the  art  of  drawing  from 
an  original  author  such  inferences  as  the  author  himself  never 
expected  would  be  made  by  his  readers,  and  perhaps  never  in- 
tended they  should  make.  Caesar,  for  instance,  is  not  giving 
an  avowed  description  of  the  Germans,  when  he  gives  us  the 
reply  of  Ariovistus  ;  yet  how  could  he  have  described  the 
military  force  of  the  country  more  strongly  ?  "  Fight  us,  if 
you  please,"  said  the  bold  Barbarian  ;  "you  will  learn  to  know 
us  ;  we  are  a  nation  that  have  been  under  no  roof  within  the 
last  fourteen  years."  u  Quurn  vellet,  congrederetur  ;  intellec- 
turum,  quid  invicti  Germani  et  exercitatissimi  armis,  qui  intra 
annos  quatuordecim  tectum  non  subissent,  virtute  possunt." 

Again,  Caesar  does  not  profess  to  illustrate  the  unsettled 
nature  of  these  nations  and  their  frequent  migrations  ;  yet  these 
facts  appear  in  every  page  of  his  work.  He  begins  with  the 
migration  of  the  Helvetii,  —  what  was  the  reason  ?  They 
found,  it  seems,  their  territory  inadequate  to  their  numbers, 
and  unworthy  of  their  renown.  From  one  passage  we  may 
collect  what  their  territory  was  ;  from  another,  their  numbers  : 
and,  as  the  population  could  scarcely  have  been  that  of  nine  to 
a  square  mile,  the  fact  must  have  been,  though  the  country  was 
mountainous,  that  they  were  fierce  and  restless,  and  unskilled 
in  agriculture.  They  stated  their  fighting  men  to  be  ninety- 
two  thousand  ;  and  with  this  force  they  were  ready  to  under- 
take an  expedition  of  this  doubtful  nature.  After  a  conflict 
with  Caesar  little  more  than  a  fourth  of  the  whole  nation 
returned  ;  that  is,  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  people  must 
have  perished,  —  a  specimen  of  the  calamities  by  which  these 
migrations  must  have  been  often  attended.  Again,  Caesar  is 
giving  no  description  of  the  unhappy  state  of  mankind  at  this 
period  ;  yet,  after  telling  us  the  story  of  the  Atuatici  (B.  ii.), 
and  speaking  of  a  strong  hold  into  which  they  had  thrown  them- 
selves, as  a  last  resource,  his  words  are  these  : — "  Postridie 
ejus  diei,  refractis  portis,  quurn  jam  defenderet  nemo  ;  atque 
intromissis  militibus  nostris  ;  sectionem  ejus  oppidi  universam 
Caesar  vendidit :  ab  his,  qui  emerant,  capitum  numerus  ad  eum 
relatus  est,  quinquaginta  trium  millium,"  —  i.  e.  in  fact  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  difficulty  in  selling,  as  slaves,  fifty-three 
thousand  people  at  a  time,  in  the  heart  of  Europe. 

No  occurrence  can  be  mentioned  more  as  a  thing  of  course  ; 


28  LECTURE  I. 

such  we  know  from  other  sources  was  the  common  fate  of  the 
vanquished,  at  a  time  when  war  seems  to  have  been  the  great 
business  of  human  life.  What  then  must  have  been  the  state 
of  mankind  ? 

Caesar  is  not  taking  any  pains  to  illustrate  the  military  char- 
acter of  either  the  Barbarians  or  the  Romans  ;  yet  he  tells  us 
that  the  Nervii,  from  the  dead  bodies  of  their  countrymen, 
threw  their  darts,  as  from  an  eminence,  and  seized  and  returned 
the  pila,  which  had  been  hurled  at  them  by  the  Romans,  — 
"His  dejectis  et  coacervatis  cadaveribus,  qui  superessent,  ut 
ex  turnulo,  tela  in  nostros  conjicerent ;  pilaque  intercepta  re- 
mitterent."  —  In  the  next  section  he  tells  us,  that  of  six  hun- 
dred of  their  senators,  three  only  remained  ;  and  of  sixty 
thousand  fighting  men,  scarcely  five  hundred.  No  doubt  this 
was  one  of  the  most  tremendous  conflicts  in  the  course  of  his 
campaigns  ;  but  if  such  facts  ever  occurred,  what  must  in  gen- 
eral have  been  the  vanquished,  and  what  the  victors  ? 

In  this  manner,  from  indirect  notices  in  the  recital  of  an 
original  author,  a  more  lively  idea  can  often  be  formed,  than 
from  the  most  regular  and  professed  description.  Such  a 
description,  however,  of  the  Gauls  and  Germans  is  given  by 
Caesar  in  the  sixth  book.  Of  the  former,  the  picture  is  short, 
but  striking,  —  "  Plebs  paene  servorum  habetur  loco  ;  quae  per 
se  nihil  audet,  et  nulli  adhibetur  concilio,  —  Viri  in  uxores, 
sicuti  in  liberos,  vitae  necisque  habent  potestatem.  —  Qui  in 
proeliis  periculisque  versantur,  aut  pro  victimis  homines  im- 
molant  ;  aut  se  immolaturos,  vovent.  Administrisque  ad  ea 
sacrificia  Druidibus  utuntur." 

A  horrible  description  follows  :  a  wicker  figure  of  a  man, 
immense  in  size,  the  interstices  of  which  were  to  be  filled  up 
with  living  men  and  then  burnt.  "  Alii  immani  magnitudine 
simulacra  habent,  quorum  contexta  viminibus  membra,  vivis 
hominibus  complent ;  quibus  succensis  circumventi  flamma 
exanimantur  homines."  So  ingenious  is  the  dullest  supersti- 
tion in  contriving  its  abominable  torments.  The  Druids,  in- 
deed, settled  the  temporal  disputes  of  the  community,  and  gave 
instructions  in  astronomy,  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  &c.  — 
"  Non  interire  anirnas  ;  multa  praeterea  de  sideribus  ;  de  rerum 
natura,"  &c.  But  what  knowledge  of  any  value  could  be 
taught  by  the  priests  of  so  gloomy  a  superstition  ? 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  29 

So  much  for  the  Gauls.  With  respect  to  the  Germans,  they 
had  no  Druids.  They  approached  to  the  state  of  a  pastoral 
nation  ;  placed  their  glory  in  having  a  solitude  of  terror 
around  their  borders  ;  had,  in  peace,  no  magistrates  but 
their  chieftains  ;  created  dictators  in  war ;  and  every  means 
was  adopted  to  make  the  nation  hardy  and  content,  by  con- 
stantly exposing  them  to  the  inclemencies  of  a  German  climate 
and  by  banishing  the  distinctions  of  property  and  wealth. 
Such  is  a  most  slight  sketch  of  the  assistance  which  we  derive 
from  Ca3sar  in  our  wish  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  Bar- 
barians. 

We  will  next  advert  to  Tacitus.  More  than  a  hundred 
years  after  the  Germans  had  attracted  the  notice  of  Cassar, 
they  were  delineated  by  the  masterly  pencil  of  Tacitus,  and 
that,  in  a  professed  work  on  the  subject,  "  De  Moribus  Ger- 
manorum." 

The  figures  are  still  bold  and  savage,  but  something  of  a 
more  soft  and  agreeable  light  is  diffused  (however  faintly) 
over  the  picture.  In  our  estimation  of  the  whole,  some  allow- 
ance must  be  made  for  the  great  historian  himself.  We  may 
remember  in  our  own  times  how  the  eloquent  Rousseau,  amid 
the  vices  of  civilized  life,  could  sigh  for  the  innocence  and  the 
virtue,  —  "  the  sublime  science  of  simple  souls,"  —  which  he 
conceived  could  be  only  found  amid  the  rocks  and  the  forests 
of  uncultivated  man. 

The  sensibility  of  Tacitus,  — a  man  of  imagination  also,  — 
exasperated  by  the  licentiousness  of  Rome,  may  be  suspected, 
in  like  manner,  of  having  surveyed  these  unpolished  Barbari- 
ans with  considerable  indulgence.  The  manly  virtues  were 
undoubtedly  to  be  found  among  them ;  but  to  the  perfection 
of  the  human  character  it  is  necessary  that  these  should  be 
softened  by  humanity  and  dignified  by  knowledge. 

I  stop  to  observe  that  savage  and  civilized  life  may  each 
exhibit  the  disgusting  extremes  of  opposite  evil  ;  but  the  one 
uniformly,  the  other  only  partially.  It  is  in  vain  to  fly  from 
one,  to  be  lost  in  the  still  more  frightful  degradation  of  the 
other  ;  and  the  propensities  and  capacities  of  our  nature  seem 
clearly  to  indicate,  that  we  are  intended  not  for  solitude  and 
torpor,  but  for  society  and  improvement. 

Whatever  value  we  may  justly  affix  to  the  account  of  Cae- 
sar, the  treatise  of  Tacitus  is  still  more  distinct,  complete, 


30  LECTURE  I.       - 

and  important.     There  is  no  work  of  profane  literature  that 
has  been  so  studied  and  discussed. 

The  whole  has  such  a  reference  to  the  manners  and  govern- 
ments of  Europe,  that  every  part  of  it  has  been  examined  by 
antiquarians  and  philosophers  ;  and  there  is  no  labor  which 
we  must  not  willingly  employ,  if  it  be  necessary,  to  familiarize 
our  minds  to  a  treatise  so  celebrated  and  so  important.  I 
must  suppose  this  done,  and  proceed.  When  we  have  thus 
formed  a  general  idea  of  the  Barbarians,  we  must  next  en- 
deavour to  understand  the  character  and  situation  of  the  Ro- 
mans. 

The  original  classic  writers  of  Rome  must  be  consulted  ; 
but  they  must  be  meditated,  not  read ;  the  student  has  prob- 
ably read  most  of  them  already  :  but  with  respect  to  all  the 
classical  writings  of  antiquity  I  must  digress  for  a  moment  to 
observe,  that  it  is  one  thing  to  know  their  beauties  and  their 
difficult  passages,  and  another,  to  turn  to  our  own  advantage 
the  information  they  contain.  It  is  one  thing  to  enrich 
our  imagination  and  form  our  taste  ;  it  is  another,  to  draw 
from  them  the  materials  of  our  own  reasonings,  to  enlarge 
our  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  to  give  efficacy  to  our 
own  labors  by  observing  the  images  of  the  human  mind,  as 
reflected  in  the  mirrors  of  the  past.  He,  who  is  already  a 
scholar,  should  endeavour  to  be  more  ;  it  is  possible  that  he 
may  be  possessed  of  treasures,  which  he  is  without  the  wish 
or  the  ability  to  use.  And  here  I  would  recommend  to  my 
hearers  one  of  the  essays  of  Mr.  Hume  ;  that,  on  the  popu- 
lousness  of  ancient  nations  :  this  essay  will  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing. My  hearers  may  probably  never  have  heard  of  Mr.  Hume 
as  a  man  of  learning,  but  this  essay  may  serve  to  show  the 
difference  between  what  a  man  of  learning  often  is,  and  what 
he  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Hume,  may  become  ;  be- 
tween him,  who  not  only  reads,  but  thinks  ;  who  can  acquire 
not  only  a  knowledge  of  words  and  sentences  (investigations 
in  themselves  of  perfect  importance,)  but  can  carry  his  knowl- 
edge into  investigations  of  a  still  higher  nature,  the  study  of 
the  principles  of  human  nature  and  political  society.  The 
same  essay  may  also  illustrate  the  art,  which  I  have  already 
announced,  of  drawing  inferences  from  a  work  which  the 
author  never  intended  to  supply.  Of  this  art  no  master  has 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  31 

ever  yet  appeared,  equal  to  Mr.  Hume.  But  to  return  to  our 
more  immediate  subject,  the  characters  of  the  Barbarians  and 
Romans. 

After  such  writers,  as  I  have  mentioned  or  alluded  to,  the 
three  first  chapters  of  Mr.  Gibbon's  History,  and  the  ninth, 
must  be  most  diligently  studied.  These  chapters  may  serve 
to  point  out  more  particularly  the  classical  authors  that  should 
be  consulted,  —  they  are  very  comprehensively  and  power- 
fully written  ;  nothing  more  can  be  wanted  to  give  the  most 
lively  and  complete  idea  of  the  Romans  and  the  Barbarians, 
and  to  enable  us  to  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  great 
contest  that  was  to  ensue.  I  must  again  suppose  this  done, 
and  the  student,  having  thus  acquainted  himself  with  the  state 
of  the  barbarous  and  civilized  nations  of  Europe,  at  this  re- 
markable epoch,  may  be  next  employed  in  considering  our 
second  question,- — -Which  of  the  two  descriptions  of  combat- 
ants were  likely  to  prevail,  —  what  were  the  natural  and 
acquired  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  each  ? 

When  we  read  the  account  of  the  hardiness  and  fierce 
courage  of  the  Barbarians,  it  seems  impossible  that  they 
should  be,  by  any  other  human  beings,  resisted  ;  and  yet 
still  more  impossible  to  suppose,  that  the  Roman  legions 
can  be  overcome,  when  we  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  their 
skill,  their  courage,  and  their  discipline  ;  the  long  result  of 
many  ages  of  experience  and  victory  :  arms,  science,  and 
union  are  on  one  side  ;  savage  nature  and  freedom  on  the 
other.  The  ultimate  success,  however,  of  the  Barbarians 
could  not  well  be  doubted  :  every  change,  it  was  clear,  would 
be  in  their  favor  ;  it  was  the  contest  of  youth  against  age,  of 
hope  against  fear. 

In  the  civilized  state  the  government  had  degenerated  into 
a  military  despotism  ;  the  vital  principle  was  in  decay  ;  the 
freedom,  the  genius  of  Rome  was  gone  for  ever.  Discipline, 
it  was  evident,  would  in  the  Barbarians  continually  improve, 
—  among  the  Romans  gradually  disappear.  The  jealousies 
and  dissensions  of  the  Barbarians  on  one  side  might  delay 
the  event  ;  as  might,  on  the  other,  great  ability  and  virtue  in 
the  Roman  emperors.  But  a  succession  of  such  merit  could 
not  be  expected.  Under  the  military  government  of  the  army 
(a  government  of  anarchy  and  licentiousness)  the  character  of 


32  LECTURE  I. 

the  Roman  people,  and  of  the  army  itself,  would  eventually 
sink  and  perish  :  and  a  few  Barbarian  chieftains  arising  at 
different  periods,  of  sufficient  ability  to  combine  and  direct  the 
energies  of  their  countrymen,  would,  it  was  evident,  at  first 
shake  and  at  length  overwhelm  the  licentious  affluence,  the 
relaxed  discipline,  the  broken,  the  wasted,  the  distracted 
powers  of  the  empire  of  Rome.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  fact. 
The  particular  events  and  steps  of  this  great  revolution  are  to 
be  seen  in  the  History  of  Gibbon. 

There  is  likewise  a  history  of  the  Germans,  written  origi- 
nally in  German  by  Mascou,  and  an  English  translation  by 
Lediard,  where  the  facts  are  told  more  simply  and  intel- 
ligibly ;  and  to  the  learning  and  merit  of  this  author  Mr.  Gib- 
bon bears  ample  testimony. 

The  fall  of  the  Empire  of  the  West  was  evidently  to  be 
expected  for  the  reasons  we  have  mentioned  ;  but  to  these 
might  have  been  added,  by  any  reasoner  at  the  time,  the  pos- 
sibility that  a  new  torrent  of  Barbarians  might  rush  into 
Europe  from  the  northeast  and  the  plains  of  Scythia.  The 
empire  had  never  been  undisturbed,  and  had  often  suffered 
very  severe  defeats  in  that  quarter  ;  such  a  calamity  'might 
not  prove  fatal,  though  dreadful,  even  to  the  Germans  ;  but 
there  was  every  probability  that  it  would  complete  the  destruc- 
tion of  Rome.  Such  an  irruption  did  in  fact  take  place  ;  the 
nation  of  the  Huns  suddenly  appeared,  savages  still  more 
odious  and  terrific  than  had  before  been  experienced.  From 
the  north  of  China  they  had  passed  or  retreated  to  the  con- 
fines of  the  Volga,  from  thence  to  the  Tanais,  and,  after  they 
had  defeated  the  Alani,  they  pressed  onward  to  the  conquest 
of  Europe. 

The  Goths  themselves,  on  whom  they  first  descended, 
considered  them  as  the  offspring  of  witches  and  infernal  spirits 
in  the  deserts  of  Scythia  ;  an  opinion  that  forcibly  expressed, 
how  unsightly  was  their  appearance,  and  how  tremendous  their 
hostility. 

An  account  of  this  invasion,  and  of  the  nation  itself,  may 
be  read  in  the  twenty-sixth,  thirty-fourth,  and  thirty-fifth 
chapters  of  Mr.  Gibbon  :  and  notwithstanding  the  range  of 
knowledge  displayed,  and  the  masterly  compression  of  the 
subject,  the  reader  will  be  often  reminded,  but  too  painfully, 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  33 

of  the  simplicity  of  Hume  and  the  perspicuous  though  some- 
what labored  elegance  of  Robertson. 

This  dreadful  visitation  of  the  Huns  did  not,  after  all,  de- 
stroy the  Roman  empire,  or  leave  that  impression  on  the  face 
of  Europe,  which  might  have  been  expected.  When  the 
fierce  Attila  was  no  more,  the  force  of  his  nation  gradually 
decayed :  Attila  himself  retreated  from  Gaul,  which  in  the 
progress  of  his  conquests  he  had  attacked  ;  and  this  whole 
irruption  of  the  Huns  must  be  considered  chiefly  as  a  sort  of 
temporary  interruption  to  the  great  contest  between  the  north- 
ern nations  and  Rome.  To  this  contest  our  attention  must 
again  return,  and  we  must  pursue  the  fall  of  the  Western  Em- 
pire, as  shown  in  the  stately  and  brilliant  narrative  of  Gibbon. 
The  northern  nations  we  shall  now  see  everywhere  triumphant: 
distinct  divisions  of  them  taking  their  station  ;  the  Franks  in 
Gaul,  the  Visigoths  in  Spain,  the  Burgundians  on  the  Rhone, 
the  Austro-Goths  in  Italy  ;  and  the  western  empire,  at  last, 
sinking  under  the  great  leader  of  his  nation,  Odoacer,  who  was 
himself  subdued  by  the  renowned  Theodoric. 

And  now  a  second  epoch  is  presented  to  us,  —  the  fall  of 
the  western  empire  of  Rome  and  the  rise  of  the  different  em- 
pires of  the  Barbarians  ;  and,  therefore,  now  comes  the  third 
and  the  last  question  which  we  have  mentioned  ;  What  was  to 
be  the  result  of  this  tremendous  collision  between  the  civilized 
and  uncivilized  portions  of  mankind,  and  of  this  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  Barbarians  ? 

Could  we  suppose  a  philosopher  to  have  lived  at  this  period 
of  the  world,  elevated  by  benevolence  and  enlightened  by 
learning  and  reflection,  concerned  for  the  happiness  of  mankind 
and  capable  of  comprehending  it,  we  can  conceive  nothing 
more  interesting,  than  would  to  him  have  appeared  the  situation 
and  fortunes  of  the  human  race.  The  civilized  world,  he  would 
have  said,  is  sinking  in  the  west  before  these  endless  tribes  of 
savages  from  the  north.  The  sister-empire  of  Constantinople 
in  the  east,  the  last  remaining  refuge  of  civilization,  must  soon 
be  overwhelmed  by  similar  irruptions  of  Barbarians  from  the 
northwest,  from  Scythia,  or  the  remoter  east.  What  can  be 
the  consequence  ?  Will  the  world  be  lost  in  the  darkness  of 
ignorance  and  ferocity  ?  sink,  never  to  emerge  ?  Or  will  the 
wrecks  of  literature  and  the  arts,  that  may  survive  the  storm, 

VOL.  i.  5 


34  LECTURE  L 

be  fitted  to  strike  the  attention  of  these  rude  conquerors,  or  suf- 
ficient to  enrich  their  minds  with  the  seeds  of  future  improve- 
ment ?  Or,  lastly,  and  on  the  other  hand,  may  not  this  extend- 
ed and  dreadful  convulsion  of  Europe  be,  after  all,  favorable 
to  the  human  race  ?  Some  change  is  necessary  ;  the  civilized 
world  is  no  longer  to  be  respected  ;  its  manners  are  corrupted, 
its  literature  has  long  declined,  its  religion  is  lost  in  controver- 
sy, or  debased  by  superstition.  There  is  no  genius,  no  liberty, 
no  virtue  ;  surely  the  human  race  will  be  improved  by  the 
renewal  which  it  will  receive  from  the  influx  of  these  freeborn 
warriors  :  mankind,  fresh  from  the  hand  of  nature,  and  regen- 
erated by  this  new  infusion  of  youth  and  vigor,  will  no  longer 
exhibit  the  vices  and  the  weakness  of  this  decrepitude  of 
humanity  :  their  aspect  will  be  erect,  their  step  firm,  their 
character  manly.  There  are  not  wanting  the  means  to  advance 
them  to  perfection  ;  the  Roman  law  is  at  hand  to  connect  them 
with  each  other  ;  Christianity  to  unite  them  to  their  Creator  : 
they  are  already  free.  The  world  will,  indeed,  begin  anew, 
but  it  will  start  to  a  race  of  happiness  and  glory.  Such,  we 
may  conceive,  might  have  been  the  opposite  speculations  of 
any  enlightened  reasoner  at  that  critical  period.  But  with  what 
eagerness  would  he  have  wished  to  penetrate  into  futurity  ! 
how  would  he  have  sighed  to  lift  up  that  awful  veil  which  no 
hand  can  remove,  no  eye  can  pierce  !  with  what  intensity  of 
curiosity  would  he  have  longed  to  gaze  upon  the  scenes,  that 
were  in  reality  to  approach  !  And,  could  such  an  anticipation 
of  the  subsequent  history  of  the  world  have  been  indeed  allow- 
ed him,  with  what  variety  of  emotions  would  he  have  surveyed 
the  strange  and  shifting  drama  that  was  afterwards  exhibited  by 
the  conflicting  reason  and  passions  of  mankind,  —  the  licen- 
tious warrior,  the  gloomy  monk,  the  military  prophet,  the 
priestly  despot,  the  shuddering  devotee,  the  iron  baron,  the 
ready  vassal,  the  courteous  knight,  the  princely  merchant,  the 
fearless  navigator,  the  patient  scholar,  the  munificent  patron, 
the  bold  reformer,  the  relentless  bigot,  the  consuming  martyr, 
the  poet,  the  artist,  and  the  philosopher,  the  legislator,  the 
statesman,  and  the  sage,  all  that  were  by  their  united  virtues 
and  labors  to  assist  the  progress  of  the  human  race,  all  that 
were  at  last  to  advance  society  to  the  state  which,  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  last  century,  it  so  happily  had  reached,  the 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  35 

state  of  balanced  power,  of  diffused  humanity  and  knowledge, 
of  political  dignity,  of  private  and  public  happiness. 

There  are  periods  in  the  history  of  mankind,  when  wishes 
like  these,  to  look  into  futurity,  strange  and  unmeaning  as  to 
colder  minds  they  may  at  first  sight  appear,  vain,  as  to  minds 
the  most  ardent  and  enlightened  we  must  confess  them  to  be, 
are  still  natural  and  inevitable  ;  and  are  felt,  and  deeply  felt, 
by  all  intelligent  men,  to  the  very  fatigue  and  sickening  of 
curiosity.  Such  a  period  has  been  our  own  ;  it  continued 
to  be  so  for  more  than  twenty  years,  from  the  breaking  out 
of  the  French  Revolution  in  1789.  Such  a  period  was  found 
in  the  days  of  Columbus,  and  of  Luther.  Such,  lastly,  was 
the  period  which  we  are,  in  this  lecture,  more  immediately 
considering,  the  period  when  the  northern  nations  were  every- 
where prevailing  ;  and  the  question  was,  what  were  to  be  the 
future  fortunes  of  the  world, — to  what  changes  were  to  be 
exposed  the  knowledge  and  civilization  of  the  human  race  ? 

I  must  recommend  it  to  you  to  take  every  opportunity  to 
pause  in  this  manner,  and  to  indulge  any  effort  of  the  imagi- 
nation by  which  you  can  suppose  yourselves  for  a  time  trans- 
ported into  distant  ages,  taking  part  with  the  actors  in  the 
scene,  animated  with  their  hopes,  alarmed  by  their  fears,  op- 
pressed by  their  anxieties,  their  apprehensions  for  the  future, 
their  regrets  for  the  past.  For  it  is  only  by  this  plastic 
power  of  the  mind,  and  these  voluntary  delusions,  that  either 
the  instruction  or  the  entertainment  of  history  can  be  realized  ; 
that  history  can  be  thoroughly  understood,  or  properly  en- 
joyed. 

We  return,  then,  to  that  memorable  epoch  in  the  history 
of  Europe,  to  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  direct  your 
reflections. 

The  Barbarians  have  everywhere  broken  down  the  Roman 
empire,  and  have  established  their  own  ;  they  have  taken  their 
different  stations. 

What  then  was  the  result  ?  To  what  degree,  on  the  one 
hand,  was  the  independent  ferocity  of  the  Barbarians  softened, 
by  that  Christianity  and  those  laws  which  were  at  the  time  in 
the  possession  of  the  Romans  ;  and  to  what  degree,  on  the 
other,  was  the  degeneracy  of  the  Romans  elevated  ?  What 
purity  did  their  controversial  religion,  what  freedom  did  their 


36  LECTURE  I. 

courtly  jurisprudence,  derive  from  the  bold  and  native  virtues 
of  the  Barbarians  ? 

In  a  word,  what  were  the  fortunes  of  the  human  race  ? 
What  impression,  what  direction,  did  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind receive  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  is  not  at  first  as  favora- 
ble as  might  be  wished  ;  it  is  for  some  time  contained  in 
the  history  of  the  Dark  Ages.  The  dark  ages  were  the 
more  immediate  result  of  this  memorable  crisis  of  the  western 
world. 

And  it  is  thus  that  the  dark  ages  are  almost  the  first 
subject  that  is  to  be  encountered  by  the  student  of  modern 
history. 

This  is  unfortunate,  —  unfortunate  more  especially  for  the 
youthful  student.  Look  at  the  writers  that  undertake  the  his- 
tory of  these  times.  They  oppress  you  by  their  tediousness ; 
they  repel  you  by  their  very  appearance,  by  the  antiquarian 
nature  of  their  researches,  and  the  very  size  of  their  volumes. 
You  recoil,  and  very  naturally,  from  events  and  names,  which 
you  have  never  heard  of  before,  which  you  do  not  expect 
to  hear  of  again,  and  which,  above  all,  it  is  impossible  to 
remember. 

Were  you  to  fly  to  the  general  history  of  Voltaire,  you 
might  be  able  to  read  indeed  the  page,  from  the  occasional 
sprighdiness  of  the  remarks  ;  but  you  would  not  be  able  to 
understand  the  events  and  characters,  which  you  would  there 
see  pass  before  your  eyes,  in  a  succession  far  too  shadowy 
and  rapid  ;  nor  would  you  be  able  more  than  before  to  remem- 
ber what  you  had  read.  The  only  benefit  that  you  would 
appear  to  derive  would  be  this,  that  you  would  think  you  had 
learnt  from  the  perusal,  that  though  you  remembered  nothing, 
there  was  nothing  worth  remembering  ;  that  savages,  under 
whatever  name,  were  only  fitted  to  disgust  you  ;  and  that  you 
had  better  hasten  to  parts  of  history  more  authentic  and  more 
instructive. 

The  same  conclusion  you  would  see  drawn  by  Lord  Boling- 
broke  in  his  Letters  on  History. 

Conclusions,  however,  like  these,  are  not  the  proper  conclu- 
sions. 

The  history  of  the  dark  ages,  for  all  philosophic  purposes, 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  37 

is  neither  without  its  authenticity  nor  its  value,  and  you  must, 
in  some  way  or  other,  acquire  some  knowledge  of  it  ;  some 
knowledge  of  these  barbarous  times,  and  these  our  barbarous 
ancestors  ;  because  you  must,  by  some  means  or  other,  see  the 
manner  in  which  the  European  character  was  formed  ;  and 
from  what  elements  the  different  governments  of  Europe  have 
originally  sprung. 

The  European  character,  you  must  be  aware,  is  not  the 
Asiatic  character,  nor  the  native  American  character,  but  one 
singularly  composed,  and  one  that  has  been  able  to  subjugate 
every  other  in  the  world.  Nor  is  the  European  form  of  gov- 
ernment like  the  Asiatic,  nor  is  that  of  England  like  that  of 
France,  nor  either,  like  that  of  Germany  ;  and  it  is  these  dif- 
ferences and  their  origin,  —  these  differences,  both  in  the 
personal  character  of  the  individual  of  Europe,  and  in  the 
general  character  of  the  constitution  under  which  he  lives,  — 
that  are  the  first  objects  which  present  themselves  to  your 
diligence  ;  and  to  trace  them  out  and  to  understand  them, 
must  constitute  your  entertainment  and  support  your  diligence, 
while  you  are  laboring  through  the  history  of  the  dark  ages. 

I  do  not  deny  that  the  study  of  this  particular  part  of  mod- 
ern history  is  difficult  and  tedious.  In  whatever  way  I  can 
propose  it  to  you,  this  must  necessarily  be  the  case.  Those 
whose  minds  are  of  a  philosophic  cast  may  indeed  undertake 
it  with  cheerfulness,  and  be  left  to  pursue  it  with  pleasure  and 
success  ;  but  it  is  for  me  to  endeavour  to  accommodate  myself 
to  minds  of  every  description  ;  and  I  shall,  therefore,  mention, 
in  the  first  place,  what  I  think  may  be  attempted  by  any  one, 
who  hears  me,  however  indisposed  to  antiquarian  research. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  there  has  been  a  book  published  by 
Mr.  Butler,  that  on  the  present  occasion  I  consider  as  invalu- 
able, —  Butler  on  the  German  Constitution.  Here  will  be 
found  all  the  outlines  of  the  subject. 

Let  the  detail  be  studied,  whenever  it  is  thought  necessary, 
in  Gibbon. 

Let  Renault's  Abridgment,  or  Millot's  Abridgment,  or 
rather  Elements,  of  the  French  History,  be  referred  to. 

These  may  be  followed  by  Robertson's  Introduction  to  his 
History  of  Charles  the  Fifth. 

And  in  this  manner,  the  student  will  be  conducted  through  a 


38  LECTURE  I. 

long  and  dreary  tract  (which,  however,  it  is  entirely  necessary 
he  should  travel  through)  with  the  least  possible  expense,  as  I 
conceive,  of  his  time  and  his  patience. 

In  the  lecture  of  to-morrow,  I  may  allude  to  more  books, 
and  recommend  more,  than  I  have  yet  done  ;  but,  in  the  first 
place,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  describe,  in  the  manner  you 
have  heard,  the  least  possible  effort  that  can  be  required  from 
any  one  that  is  placed  within  the  reach  of  a  regular  education 
in  an  improved  country,  like  this  of  England.  No  good  can 
be  purchased  without  some  labor  ;  and,  though  the  opening  of 
modern  history  may  be  repulsive,  the  portions  of  it  that  follow 
will  be  found  sufficiently  attractive. 

You  will  now,  therefore,  understand,  what  I  wish  you  to 
bear  away,  as  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  present  lecture. 

That  it  was  a  very  remarkable  crisis  of  the  world,  when  the 
Romans  and  Barbarians  were  contending  for  the  empire  of  it, 
—  that  you  must  endeavour  to  comprehend  from  the  writers  I 
first  mentioned,  Caesar,  Tacitus,  and  Gibbon,  what  were  the 
characters  of  the  combatants,  —  and  then  ask  yourselves  what 
was  likely  to  be  the  result. 

That  the  first  and  more  immediate  result  was  the  dark  ages. 

That  these  are,  therefore,  immediately  to  be  studied  ;  not 
only  as  being  the  first  result  of  such  an  extraordinary  collision 
between  the  civilized  and  uncivilized  portions  of  mankind  at 
the  time,  but  because  in  these  dark  ages  are  to  be  found  the 
elements  of  the  European  character  and  governments,  as  they 
now  exist. 

Studied,  however,  though  they  must  be,  that  studied  they 
cannot  be,  without  great  toil  and  patience. 

That  to  those  who  are  ready  to  undergo  such  intellectual 
exertion,  I  shall  address  myself  in  subsequent  lectures,  but  that 
in  the  mean  time  the  readiest  method  I  have  to  propose  of  ac- 
quiring proper  information  on  this  indispensable  portion  of 
modern  history  is,  the  study  of  Butler,  Gibbon,  Renault,  or 
Millot,  and  Robertson, — his  Preface  to  the  History  of  Charles 
the  Fifth  ;  and  that  this  course  of  reading  I  think  very  practi- 
cable. 

One  word  more,  and  I  conclude. 

You  have  just  heard  the  books  I  refer  to. 

I  have  now  to  add,  that  I  think  there  are  certain  subjects 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  39 

which  may  be  selected  from  the  immense  general  subject  of 
the  dark  ages,  and  which  may  give  you  an  idea  of  the  whole 
in  the  shortest  and  best  manner. 

I  hope,  by  mentioning  them,  lo  save  you  from  being  some- 
what bewildered  by  the  variety  of  topics  and  the  multiplicity 
of  researches  in  which  you  might  be  engaged,  if  you  properly 
studied  even  such  writers,  and  no  more  than  such  writers,  as 
I  have  just  recommended  ;  much  more,  if  you  passed  on  from 
them  to  others,  such  as  I  shall  mention  to-morrow. 

These  subjects  are  the  following. 

You  will  see  them  enumerated  in  the  Syllabus. 

First,  in  the  French  history, — Clovis,  the  founder  of  the 
French  monarchy  and  the  Merovingian  or  first  race  of  kings. 

Second,  the  Pepins  and  Charles  Martel,  the  Mayors  of  the 
Palace.  They  administered  and  the  second  Pepin  at  last 
seized  the  government  and  founded  the  second  or  Carlovin- 
gian  race  of  kings.  —  And  then, 

The  third  object  of  attention  is  Charlemagne. 

Out  of  the  immense  empire  of  Charlemagne  arose  the  two 
great  empires  of  Germany  and  France,  which  become  the 
fourth  point  to  be  considered. 

Or  rather,  the  point  to  be  considered  is,  the  manner  in 
which  the  crown  in  the  one  case  became  hereditary,  in  the 
other  elective. 

Again,  in  consequence  of  the  intercourse  which  took  place 
between  the  French  princes  and  the  Pope,  the  latter  became 
a  temporal  prince.  Which  makes  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Pope  the  fifth  object  of  consideration. 

During  this  period  the  Feudal  System  had  its  origin,  —  the 
sixth. 

Chivalry  is  the  seventh. 

In  the  German  history,  the  great  objects  of  attention  are  the 
struggles  between  the  popes  and  the  emperors,  —  the  eighth. 

The  rise  and  prosperity  of  the  free  and  imperial  cities  and 
commercial  communities  in  Italy  and  every  part  of  Europe, 
more  particularly  of  the  Hanseatic  league,  —  the  ninth. 

You  will  thus  reach  the  subject  of  the  Crusades,  —  the 
tenth. 

These  are,  I  conceive,  the  main  subjects  ;  but  there  is  one 
yet  remaining,  which  in  point  of  order  I  should  have  men- 
tioned first,  the  Laws  of  the  Barbarians,  —  the  eleventh. 


40  LECTURE  I. 

You  will  find  this  subject  alluded  to  in  the  books  I  have 
mentioned,  and  you  will  immediately  see  its  importance,  — 
the  laws  of  a  people,  you  cannot  but  be  aware,  will  always  give 
you  the  best  and  readiest  insight  into  their  political  situation. 

The  laws  of  the  Barbarians  will  therefore  best  show  you 
what  was  the  more  immediate  result  of  the  collision  we  have 
so  often  alluded  to  between  the  civilized  and  uncivilized  por- 
tions of  mankind. 

This  subject,  however,  is  a  large  subject,  and  many  of  you 
may  be  unwilling  to  undertake  it. 

I  must  endeavour  to  propose  it  to  you  in  some  way  or 
other,  that  may  afford  me  a  proper  chance  of  your  considering 
it,  and  this  I  will  do  to-morrow. 

It  may  be  as  well  too,  perhaps,  if  I  then  enter  a  little  more 
into  the  subjects  I  have  just  mentioned  ;  and  this  therefore  I 
will  do,  though  I  must  necessarily  be  very  brief. 

I  cannot  but  remember  how  I  have  been  affected  myself 
by  this  portion  of  modern  history  in  my  progress  through  it 
as  a  student  ;  in  other  words,  and  to  confess  the  truth,  how 
disheartened  and  overpowered  I  have  at  times  been  ;  and  I 
must  now,  therefore,  remind  you  of  what  I  have  proposed  to 
myself  as  the  great  end  and  hope  of  these  lectures,  —  the 
enabling  of  you  to  read  history  with  better  advantage  for 
yourselves. 

I  shall  be  too  fortunate  if  it  is  possible  for  me  so  to  assist 
you  in  your  labors  ;  and  so  to  furnish  you  with  prefatory  prin- 
ciples and  information,  that  you  may  hereafter  approach  the 
subject  at  once  as  masters  and  as  scholars  ;  with  the  curiosity 
of  the  one,  and  philosophic  views  of  the  other. 


LECTURE    II. 

LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  endeavoured  to  draw  your  attention, 
first,  to  that  crisis  of  human  affairs  which  took  place  during 
the  contest  of  the  northern  nations  with  the  Romans  for  the 
empire  of  Europe  ;  and,  secondly,  to  the  dark  ages  which  im- 
mediately followed.  I  did  so,  because  in  that  contest,  and 
in  those  dark  ages,  not  only  one  of  the  most  interesting  epochs 
may  be  found  in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  but  also  the 
first  outlines  and  the  great  original  sources  and  elements  of 
the  character  of  the  European  individual  and  of  the  European 
governments. 

I  mentioned  to  you  the  books  to  which  you  might  refer  for 
information  ;  and  those  subjects  which  I  thought  you  might 
select  from  the  rest,  as  the  most  likely  to  give  you,  in  the 
shortest  time,  a  commanding  view  of  the  whole. 

I  announced  to  you,  as  I  concluded  my  lecture,  that  I 
should  furnish  you  to-day  with  a  few  observations  on  each  of 
these  subjects,  the  better  to  enable  you  to  form  some  general 
notion  of  them  at  present,  and  to  study  them  hereafter. 

This  I  will  now  do  ;  and  shall,  therefore,  have  to  mention 
more  books  than  I  have  hitherto  done.  The  fact  is,  that 
I  had  originally  drawn  up,  with  considerable  labor,  such 
statements  and  observations  on  these  subjects,  and  on  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  French  and  German  histories,'  as  I  had 
conceived  would  have  given  my  hearer  an  adequate  view  of 
them,  and  saved  him  much  fatigue  of  his  spirits  and  occupation 
of  his  time. 

But,  after  considering  what  I  had  written,  I  became  satisfied 
that  I  had  attempted  too  much  ;  that  all  such  subjects  and  all 
such  periods  of  history  must  be  left  to  the  study,  more  or  less 

VOL.  i.  6 


42  LECTURE  II. 

laborious,  of  every  man  for  himself ;  and  that  they  cannot  be 
discussed  or  described  in  any  such  general  manner,  as  can  save 
him  from  the  necessity  of  his  own  exertions. 

Allusions  must  be  made  at  every  moment  to  characters  and 
events,  which  have  been  scarcely  heard  of,  and  which  cannot 
therefore  be  understood. 

Estimates  must  be  given,  the  propriety  of  which  cannot  be 
judged  of;  criticisms  entered  upon,  necessarily  unintelligible  ; 
and  on  the  whole,  that  which  it  would  be  a  labor  to  consider, 
if  offered  in  the  shape  of  a  book  to  a  reader  in  his  closet,  can- 
not be  presented  in  the  shape  of  a  lecture  to  a  hearer. 

I  can  therefore  only  mention  the  exertions  I  have  really 
made,  the  most  fatiguing  I  have  had  to  make,  the  better  to 
justify  myself  in  requiring  what  I  esteem  but  necessary  exer- 
tions from  others  ;  and  I  shall  sufficiently  exercise  your  patience, 
if,  instead  of  discussing  these  subjects,  as  I  had  endeavoured 
to  do,  in  several  lectures,  which  I  have  now  dismissed,  I  make 
an  observation  on  each  subject,  as  I  yesterday  proposed  to  do, 
merely  to  assist  you  in  taking  proper  measures  for  your  owe 
instruction. 

1st,  then,  an  account  of  Clovis  and  the  earlier  portions  of 
the  French  history  is  to  be  found  in  Gibbon. 

2d.  With  respect  to  the  mayors  of  the  palace.  The  obser- 
vations of  Montesquieu  are  here  very  satisfactory. 

But  in  all  and  in  every  part  of  these  subjects,  and  of  all  this 
history,  the  work  of  the  Abbj  de  Mably  is  inestimable. 

The  French  history,  to  one  not  a  native  of  France,  would 
be  a  subject  of  despair,  would  be  totally  unintelligible,  without 
his  assistance  ;  and,  when  I  recommend  him  to  others,  I  ought 
to  do  it  in  the  language  of  the  most  perfect  gratitude  for  the 
relief  he  has  so  often  or  rather  so  continually  afforded  rne. 

3d.  With  respect  to  Charlemagne,  the  great  conqueror  of 
his  age. 

There  is  a  life  by  Eginhart,  who  lived  in  his  family ;  and  as 
it  is  very  concise  and  intelligible,  more  especially  as  it  is  an 
original  document,  it  is  well  worthy  of  your  perusal. 

But  it  is  too  much  in  the  nature  of  an  cloge, — nothing  is 
criticized, — nothing  censured.  The  reader  must  think  for 
himself.  Eginhart  never  speculates  or  enters  into  the  causes 
of  events  or  their  consequences. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  43 

Thus  he  mentions  the  great  defeat  of  the  Mahometans  in 
the  plains  of  France,  by  Charles  Martel,  and  the  elevation  of 
Pepin  to  the  throne,  u  per  auctoritatem  Romani  Pontificis," 
without  the  slightest  comment. 

Eginhart  gives  a  few,  but  too  few,  of  the  particulars  of  the 
private  life  and  manners  of  the  emperor.  That  he  in  vain  en- 
deavoured, when  too  late,  to  learn  to  write,  &c.  &c. 

Montesquieu  is  loud  in  the  praise  of  this  prince,  —  the 
Abbe  de  Mably  is  still  more  distinct  in  his  approbation. 
Their  approbation  is  valuable,  and  should  be  weighed  by  the 
student ;  for  a  less  favorable,  but  masterly  estimate  of  his 
merits  is  given  by  Mr.  Gibbon  in  his  forty-ninth  chapter. 
His  animadversions  seem  but  too  just,  yet  the  estimate  on 
the  whole  is  not  sufficiently  indulgent.  In  judging  of  Charle- 
magne, the  student  will  no  doubt  recollect  the  nature  of  all 
genius  and  all  merit,  that  it  is  relative  to  the  age  in  which  it 
appears. 

So  much  for  the  third  subject  I  mentioned,  — the  subject  of 
Charlemagne. 

4th.  After  the  decease  of  Charlemagne,  his  immense  em- 
pire fell  into  the  great  divisions  of  Italy,  France,  and  Ger- 
many. 

And  now,  the  point  which  should  attract,  I  think,  your  at- 
tention, is  the  manner  in  which  the  crown  in  France  became 
hereditary,  but  in  Germany  elective,  and  the  consequences  of 
these  two  different  events.  There  are  some  conclusions  that 
may  be  drawn  from  the  nature  of  man  so  clearly,  that  they 
may  be  extended  to  politics,  and  even  formed  into  maxims,  — 
e.  g.  that  hereditary  is  preferable  to  elective  monarchy.  The 
objections  to  elective  monarchy  have  been  always  verified  in 
the  history  of  mankind.  A  thousand  years  ago  it  might  have 
been  foretold,  that,  if  in  France  the  crown  became  hereditary, 
and  in  Germany  elective,  the  one  kingdom  would  be  compact 
and  powerful,  the  other  comparatively  divided  and  weak  ;  that, 
from  their  vicinity,  these  empires  would  subsist  in  a  state  of 
mutual  jealousy  ;  and  that,  in  all  contests  with  its  great  neigh- 
bour, Germany  would,  from  its  constitution,  lose  all  its  natural 
strength  ;  that  as  the  crown  was  elective,  and  as  the  great 
lords  had  fallen  into  a  few  exclusive  combinations,  the  event 
must  be,  either  that  one  of  these  dynasties  would  gain  the 


44  LECTURE  II. 

ascendant,  and  reduce  the  whole  into  something  like  an  hered- 
itary empire  ;  or,  if  not  strong  enough  to  seize  the  whole 
power,  then,  that  some  secondary  potentate  might  always  be 
able  to  unite  itself  with  France,  and  embroil  and  weaken,  if 
not  ultimately  destroy,  the  whole.  It  might  also  have  been 
stated  as  a  general  maxim,  that  the  evils  attendant  on  an  elective 
monarchy  would  be  lessened,  the  more  completely  the  elec- 
tion was  transferred  from  the  general  assemblies  of  the  king- 
dom to  a  few  electors,  as  representatives  of  the  whole  kingdom. 
All  these  points  might  have  been  stated  long  before  the 
different  fortunes  of  Germany  and  Poland  had  become  exam- 
ples in  history  ;  and  though  it  be  very  difficult,  as  I  must 
repeat,  to  reduce  politics  to  a  science,  yet  there  seem  some 
principles  in  human  nature  so  steady,  that  a  few  maxims  may 
be  formed  universally  applicable. 

The  origin  of  this  important  difference  in  the  constitution 
of  France  and  Germany  should  be  considered.  You  will  do 
therefore  well  to  observe  in  the  work  of  Pfeffel,  at  the  end  of 
each  reign,  and  of  each  dynasty,  how  the  custom  of  election 
was  preserved  in  the  German  empire,  till  the  right  received 
its  formal  establishment  in  the  electoral  college,  by  the  golden 
bull  of  Charles  the  Fourth.  How  chance  and  circumstances 
contributed  to  this  remarkable  difference  between  the  two 
kingdoms.  This  latter  part  of  the  subject  may  be  still  more 
completely  seen  in  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  particularly  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  fourth  book.  The  French  history,  too, 
must  be  read  with  this  particular  point  present  to  your  re- 
membrance,—  how,  for  instance,  in  France  the  crown  became 
hereditary. 

With  respect  to  the  fifth  point,  the  rise  of  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Pope,  there  is  a  very  clear  and  concise  account 
given  by  Mr.  Butler,  to  which  I  refer.  Koch,  too,  is  very 
satisfactory,  though  concise.  The  church  of  Rome  seems 
originally  to  have  derived  its  property  and  its  magistracy  from 
Constantine.  Pepin  successfully  applied  to  the  Pope  to  sanc- 
tion his  unjust  seizure  of  the  crown,  and  the  see  of  Rome  was, 
in  return,  complimented  afterwards  with  the  grant  of  the  ex- 
archate of  Ravenna  and  the  Pentapolis. 

The  intercourse  between  Charlemagne  and  Pope  Adrian 
was  of  a  similar  nature,  and  very  beneficial  to  the  see.  Pepin 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  45 

might  little  conceive,  when  he  applied  to  the  pope  for  the 
sanction  of  his  opinion  and  authority,  to  what  extent  the  sort 
of  interference,  he  requested,  would  be  afterwards  carried  ; 
and  it  is  by  these  transactions  between  the  kings  of  France 
and  the  popes,  that  this  period  of  history  is  for  ever  rendered 
memorable  to  the  nations  of  Europe.  What  immediately 
gave  rise  to  this  power  of  the  pope,  for  which  the  world  was 
so  prepared,  was  the  controversy  about  the  worship  of  images  : 
a  masterly  account  of  the  whole  subject,  including  the  com- 
mencement of  this  temporal  authority,  will  be  found  in  Mr. 
Gibbon's  forty-ninth  chapter. 

The  reflection  of  the  reader  may  justly  be  drawn,  not  only 
to  the  origin  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  pope,  but  to  the 
controversy  itself,  —  the  controversy  about  images,  so  illus- 
trative of  the  character  of  mankind,  ever  ready  to  lose  the 
practice  of  religion  in  contests  about  its  speculative  points  or 
ceremonial  observances. 

6th.  The  next  subject,  the  Feudal  System,  is  one  on  which 
the  student  may  exhaust  his  time  and  exercise  his  diligence 
to  any  extent  he  pleases  :  it  has  employed  the  penetration 
and  industry  of  innumerable  antiquarians,  philosophers,  and 
lawyers,  in  whose  inquiries  and  dissertations  he  may,  if  he 
pleases,  for  ever  wander.  With  respect,  however,  to  the 
origin  and  leading  features  of  this  memorable  institution,  his 
attention  may  perhaps  be  confined  to  the  observations  of  Mon- 
tesquieu, the  Abbe  de  Mably,  Robertson,  Stuart  in  his  View 
of  Society  in  Europe,  and  Millar. 

In  Montesquieu  he  may  perhaps  be  somewhat  disappoint- 
ed. Great  learning  and  great  power  of  remark  are  displayed, 
but  the  whole  is  perplexing  and  unsatisfactory,  and  therefore 
very  fatiguing  :  the  inquiry  does  not  proceed  from  step  to 
step,  and  then  arrive  at  a  conclusion  ;  remark  follows  remark, 
and  one  dissertation  is  succeeded  by  another,  of  which  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  the  connexion  ;  the  parts  are  not  combined 
into  a  whole  by  the  author  himself,  nor  can  they  be,  by  his 
reader.  It  is  not  so  with  Millar,  Robertson,  or  Stuart, 
or  the  Abbe  de  Mably  ;  these  authors  are  at  once  concise, 
unaffected,  and  intelligible.  The  institution  of  the  feudal 
system  must  be  traced,  if  possible,  through  such  ancient 
records  as  are  come  down  to  us  ;  and  the  student,  by 


46  LECTURE  II. 

reading  the  authors  just  mentioned,  and  looking  at  the  refer- 
ences they  make  to  the  capitularies  and  state  papers  which 
appear  in  Baluze,  if  he  has  not  the  greater  work  of  the  Ben- 
edictines near  him,  u  Recueil  des  Historiens  des  Gaules  et  de 
la  France,"  may  sufficiently  understand  the  nature  of  this  im- 
portant subject.  The  institution  itself,  though  destined  so 
materially  to  affect  the  form  and  happiness  of  society,  grew 
up  insensibly,  and  its  steps  and  gradations  cannot  now  be 
marked.  Upon  consulting  the  books  I  have  recommended, 
it  will  appear,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  notion  of  the  feudal 
system,  which  is  generally  formed,  is  not  accurate.  It  does 
not  seem  to  have  been,  as  is  supposed,  a  system  adopted  by 
the  northern  nations  merely  for  the  sake  of  preserving  their 
conquests  ;  even  Dr.  Robertson  himself,  in  his  earlier  con- 
sideration of  this  subject,  seems  to  have  too  nearly  approached 
to  some  such  mistake  as  this.  It  will  be  found  that  lands 
were  held  originally  by  each  soldier  as  his  own,  allodial  ; 
his  share  of  the  spoil  on  the  first  conquest  of  a  country  ;  in 
the  next  place,  lands  were  held  as  beneficia,  lands  given  by 
the  king  or  leader  :  but  a  fief  is  more  than  all  this,  —  it  is  lands 
held  on  a  condition  of  military  or  other  service,  on  a  condi- 
tion of  vassalage  to  some  superior  lord.  The  Abbe  de  Mably 
makes  it  sufficiently  probable  that  beneficia  of  this  kind,  i.  e. 
that  fiefs,  were  first  introduced  by  Charles  Martel.  The  au- 
thors I  have  referred  to  explain  sufficiently  the  progress  of 
this  system  ;  how  the  fiefs  became  at  last  hereditary  ;  how 
the  system  of  rear  fief  and  rear  vassal,  of  fief  within  fief,  at 
last  obtained  ;  how  the  same  general  system,  with  various  dis- 
tinctions, was  extended  to  ecclesiastical  property  ;  how,  at 
last,  all  the  property  was  converted  (allodial  as  well  as  ben- 
eficial), upon  the  regular  principles  of  human  nature,  into 
feudal  property  ;  how  kingdoms  fell  into  a  few  great  fiefs,  of 
which  the  monarch  himself  became  at  last  the  great  holder, 
and  therefore  the  great  feudal  lord,  with  more  or -less  influ- 
ence and  authority,  according  to  the  fortune  or  talents  of  his 
ancestors  and  himself.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  two  centu- 
ries, the  fiefs,  for  instance,  in  France  had  become  heredi- 
tary, the  whole  kingdom  had  fallen  into  eight  or  nine  great 
feudal  baronies  ;  of  these  Hugh  Capet  held  the  strongest, 
and  being  the  first  in  ability,  amongst  these  feudal  chiefs,  as 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  47 

well  as  in  possessions,  he  usurped  the  crown,  and  transmitted 
it  to  his  posterity. 

Stuart  produces  his  reasons  for  insisting  upon  his  great 
distinction  in  the  history  of  the  feudal  association,  viz.  that  it 
was  originally  a  bond  of  love,  amity,  and  friendship,  not  of 
oppression,  its  second  and  degraded  period. 

This  must  be  considered.     But  how  soon  and  how  com- 
pletely it  degenerated  may  be  seen  from  turning  to  what  were 
called  the  feudal  incidents,  which  may  be  found  in  Blackstone, 
in  the  notes  to  Stuart,  and  in  the  second  of  the  Appendixes  of 
Hume's  History.     The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  this 
system  may  be   collected  not  only  from  the  writers  I  have 
mentioned,  but  from  Dr.  Millar,  who  considers  it  as  a  system 
necessarily   arising   from   the   nature   and   manners   of    these 
northern  nations  ;  tribes  of  independent  warriors  put  into  pos- 
session  by   their   conquests   of  extensive   tracts   of  country, 
inhabited  by  a  more  civilized  people.     And,  on  the  whole, 
however  natural  might  be  the  rise  and  subsequent  establish- 
ment of  the  system,  and  whatever  might  have  been  the  benefits 
which  it  might  have  afforded  to  society  during  some  of  its 
earlier  periods,  a  consideration  of  the  incidents,  which  I  have 
mentioned,  will  show  clearly,  that  it  must  soon  have  become 
one   of  the    greatest   political   evils   that   a  community  could 
have  to  struggle  with.     No  doubt  the  state  of  anarchy  from 
which  the  feudal  system  saved  society  must  be  duly  consid- 
ered.     Whatever  was  fitted,   as   was  the   feudal  system,  to 
bind   men  together  by   any  sense  of  protection,   of  gratitude, 
of  fidelity,   of  reciprocal  obligation  ;  whatever  was  likely  to 
create  or  uphold  any  generous  feelings  or  milder  virtues  among 
them  ;  whatever  had  a  tendency  to  protect  Europe  from  any 
one   great    conqueror  ;    whatever   introduced   or    maintained 
among  men  any  notion  of  legal  or  political  right,  was  during 
a  long  interval  (such  was  then  the  unhappy  state  of  the  world) 
of  the   greatest   consequence  to  the   world.     But  when  this 
office  had  been  rendered  to  mankind,  the  feudal  system  be- 
came in  its  turn   a  source  of  the  most  incessant,  vexatious, 
unfeeling,  and  atrocious  oppression,  and  a  great  impediment 
to  all  prosperity  and  improvement.     These  two  different  sit- 
uations of  the  system  and  of  the  world  must  be  kept  distinctly 
in  remembrance. 


48  LECTURE  II. 

7th.  The  subject  of  Chivalry  may  be  found  in  the  work  of 
Stuart,  and  there  is  a  short  notice  of  it  in  the  fifty-eighth 
chapter  of  Gibbon.  The  Memoirs  of  Ancient  Chivalry,  by 
Monsieur  de  St.  Palaye,  is  the  book  generally  referred  to  ; 
and  it  must  by  all  means  be  considered,  but  it  is  a  work  very 
defective  ;  it  contains,  indeed,  a  sufficient  discussion  of  the 
education,  character,  and  exercises  of  the  knights,  but  there 
is  not  united  with  these,  as  there  should  have  been,  any  phi- 
losophic account  of  the  rise,  influence,  and  decline  of  chivalry. 
These  important  topics  are,  indeed,  taken  up  and  laid  down 
several  times  in  different  parts  of  the  work,  but  never  pursued 
or  discussed  in  any  steady  and  effective  manner.  I  am  not 
aware  that  this  has  been  properly  done  or  regularly  attempted 
by  any  writer  ;  which,  considering  the  present  advanced  state 
of  literature,  is  somewhat  remarkable.  The  work  of  Palaye 
may  be  found,  where  it  first  appeared,  in  the  u  Memoires  de 
PAcadtimie,"  twentieth  volume. 

Sth.  In  the  German  history,  to  which  we  next  allude,  and 
indeed  in  the  history  of  every  part  of  Europe  at  this  period, 
the  striking  object  of  attention  is  the  growth  and  immense 
strength  of  ecclesiastical  power.  The  annals  of  England, 
France,  and  more  especially  of  Germany,  are  abundantly 
crowded  with  instances  of  the  kind.  We  must  recollect,  that 
the  different  prerogatives  of  the  emperor  and  pope  were  left 
in  a  state  very  vague  and  unsettled.  The  events  of  the  con- 
test are  seen  in  Pfeffel,  in  that  part  of  his  history  which  we 
now  approach,  the  dynasties  of  the  different  houses  of  Sax- 
ony, Franconia,  and  Suabia.  It  is  the  earlier  part  of  a  strug- 
gle of  this  kind  that  is  most  interesting  to  a  philosophic  ob- 
server. It  is  then  that  the  lessons  of  instruction  are  given  ; 
it  is  then  that  are  seen  the  slow  and  successive  encroachments 
by  which  tyranny  is  at  last  established,  —  the  gradual  acces- 
sions of  shade  by  which  a  picture  is  at  last  lost  in  darkness  ; 
the  awful  example  which  proves  that  what  is  experiment  to- 
day is  precedent  to-morrow,  and  right  and  law,  however  un- 
just and  abominable,  for  succeeding  generations.  The  steps 
by  which  the  power  of  the  pope  became  a  despotism  so  com- 
plete, are  marked  with  sufficient  minuteness  by  Giannone, 
in  his  ecclesiastical  chapters,  particularly  in  his  fifth  chapter 
of  his  nineteenth  book  ;  and  this  will  be  sufficient  for  the 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  49 

information  of  the  student.  Mr.  Gibbon  has  made  several 
valuable  observations  on  the  different  emperors  of  the  different 
dynasties  during  this  period,  and  on  their  contests  in  Italy. 
The  remarks  of  Pfeffel  are  particularly  to  be  noted  in  the  great 
interregnum.  This  is  the  period  during  which  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  states  and  the  great  public  law  of  Germany 
gained  a  strength  and  assumed  a  form  which  they  never  af- 
terwards lost. 

9th.  In  Pfeffel,  too,  may  be  examined  the  next  great  object 
of  remark  which  I  have  mentioned  :  that  change,  of  all  one 
of  the  most  important,  the  improvement  which  took  place  in 
the  condition  of  the  imperial  cities  and  the  free  and  imperial 
cities  about  this  time.  As  it  is  instructive  to  investigate  the 
progress  of  the  abuse  of  power,  so  is  it,  to  note  the  progress 
of  human  prosperity,  often  from  beginnings  the  most  unpromis- 
ing. The  important  step  in  this  progress  was  the  enfranchise- 
ment that  had  been  obtained  by  the  inhabitants  of  these  cities 
from  the  German  emperor  Henry  the  Fifth,  about  a  century  and 
a  half  before  this  period.  They  had  not,  however,  been  admit- 
ted into  the  offices  of  the  magistracy  :  this,  after  the  death  of 
Frederick  the  Second,  in  some  way  or  other  they  effected,  and 
at  last  became  a  part  of  the  general  constitution  of  Germany 
itself.  However  distant  were  these  towns  or  little  republics  from 
each  other,  the  sympathy  of  a  common  interest  was  everywhere 
felt.  Their  councils  always  harmonized,  their  enterprises  were 
the  same,  and  the  league  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Hanseatic  league 
taught  a  world  of  barbarous  priests  and  warriors  to  enjoy  the 
industry  and  respect  the  courage  of  these  new  princes  and  po- 
tentates, the  offspring,  indeed,  of  serfs  and  pedlers,  but  the 
civilizers  and  benefactors  of  mankind.  In  1241,  Lubeck  united 
itself  with  a  few  neighbouring  towns  against  some  pirates  of  the 
Baltic.  Their  success  gave  rise  to  an  union  of  all  the  commer- 
cial cities  from  the  Vistula  to  the  Rhine.  Among  these,  the 
cities  of  Lubeck,  Cologne,  Brunswick,  and  Dantzic,  particu- 
larly Lubeck,  had  the  direction  of  the  general  interests.  Lon- 
don, Bergen,  Novogorod,  and  Bruges,  were  the  great  depots: 
these  connected  the  north  to  the  rest  of  Europe  ;  Augsburg 
and  Nuremberg,  in  the  heart  of  Germany,  connected  the  north 
to  Italy  ;  and  the  Italian  republics  maintained  the  intercourse 

VOL.  i.  7 


50  LECTURE   II. 

between  the  western  and  eastern  divisions  of  mankind.  Thus 
extensively  did  the  Hanseatic  league  circulate  the  gifts  of  na- 
ture and  the  labors  of  art  for  nearly  three  centuries,  and  it  at 
length  declined,  only  because  it  had  discharged  its  salutary 
office  in  the  progress  of  society  ;  and  because  it  was  super- 
seded, on  the  discovery  of  the  Indies,  by  that  more  natural 
and  more  complete,  though  still  but  too  imperfect,  system  of 
commercial  intercourse,  which,  in  defiance  of  all  the  jealousies 
of  ignorance  and  all  the  interruptions  and  destruction  of  war, 
has  so  long  continued  to  soften,  to  animate,  and  to  improve  the 
condition  of  humanity. 

10th.  The  memorable  Crusades  are  amongst  the  objects 
that  will  in  the  next  place  present  themselves  to  the  student. 
They  have  been  fully  explained  by  Hume  and  other  writers, 
but,  as  they  have  called  forth  all  the  powers  of  the  historian 
of  the  Decline  and  Fall,  the  student  may  have  the  advantage  of 
his  animated  and  comprehensive  narrative  ;  and  more  particu- 
larly may  observe,  in  one  of  his  notes,  the  original  authorities 
on  which  his  relation  and  remarks  are  founded.  He  is  not 
only  the  last  writer  on  these  subjects,  but  one,  who  is  not 
likely  to  leave  much  to  be  gleaned  by  those  who  come  after 
him. 

In  this  slight  manner  I  have  endeavoured  to  mention,  not 
to  discuss,  the  great  points  of  attention  during  these  middle 
ages.  I  cannot  deny  that  the  perusal  of  this  part  of  history  is 
very  fatiguing,  but  there  is  no  part  more  important  ;  it  must  at 
all  events  be  considered.  I  hope  that  I  have  presented  it  in  a 
form  in  which  it  may  be  considered.  It  is  only  from  a  due 
meditation  on  these  melancholy  scenes  and  on  human  nature  in 
this  unfortunate  situation,  that  the  student  can  ever  be  taught 
properly  to  feel  those  blessings  of  civil,  religious,  and  commer- 
cial liberty,  by  which  the  later  periods  of  the  world  have  been 
in  comparison  so  happily  distinguished. 

I  must  now  refer  to  the  last  remaining  subject  among  those 
which  I  enumerated,  as  connected  with  this  period  of  the 
history  of  the  world. 

You  may  remember,  that  in  yesterday's  lecture  I  mentioned 
the  Barbaric  codes. 

The  institutions  and  laws,  to  which  these  northern  nations 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  51 

conformed,  existed  long  before  they  were  reduced  into  form 
and  writing  ;  but  this  was  at  last  done.  They  were  enlarged, 
amended,  and  altered  by  different  princes. 

Some  general  knowledge  of  them  must  be  obtained. 

There  are  observations  by  Mr.  Gibbon  on  these  laws  ;  there 
are  some  chapters  in  Montesquieu. 

It  might  be  thought  sufficient  to  refer  to  the  remarks  of 
these  great  writers  ;  but  on  this,  as  on  all  other  occasions, 
some  labor  must  be  endured  :  the  reader  would  receive  from 
them  a  very  general  and  imperfect  impression,  and  that  im- 
pression would  soon  pass  away.  The  codes  themselves  must 
be  (at  least  in  part)  perused  ;  but,  before  this  is  attempted,  we 
should  refer  to  the  history  of  Gibbon,  and  afterwards  to  He- 
nault's  Abridgment  of  the  History  of  France,  so  as  to  become 
somewhat  acquainted  with  the  names  and  characters  of  the 
princes  mentioned  in  these  codes,  in  the  prefaces  to  them, 
and  in  the  capitularies  that  followed  them  ;  and  should  then, 
and  not  before,  begin  our  survey  of  the  volumes  in  which  these 
barbaric  laws  and  institutions  are  contained. 

They  are  published  by  Lindenbrogius  ;  his  work  is  easily 
met  with. 

The  work  of  Baluze  contains  the  capitularies  ;  this  work, 
too,  can  everywhere  be  found.  The  Capitularies  were  the 
laws  or  proclamations  of  different  princes  in  succession,  from 
Clovis  to  Hugh  Capet ;  and  these,  with  the  codes,  indicate 
the  character  of  the  nations  and  governments  to  which  they 
belong  from  the  earliest  time.  Now  it  is  impossible  for  me 
to  attempt  any  examination  of  these  systems  of  law  in  this 
course  of  lectures,  or  for  any  one  in  any  course  of  lectures, 
unless  they  were  given  for  that  precise  purpose  ;  but  I  had 
hoped,  I  must  confess,  that  some  of  the  leading  laws  of  each 
code  might  have  been  exhibited  by  me,  so  as  to  have  given 
some  general  idea  of  the  whole.  After  spending,  however, 
many  hours  on  the  work  of  Lindenbrock,  and  drawing  up  a 
detail,  with  such  observations  as  I  had  conceived  would  have 
enabled  my  hearer  to  carry  away  the  leading  points  of  each 
code,  and  the  differences  by  which  they  were  distinguished 
from  one  another,  I  found,  upon  a  revisal  of  what  I  had  done, 
that  the  whole  was  a  mass  too  unwieldly  to  be  here  produced, 
even  though  drawn  up  in  the  most  summary  way,  and  that, 


52  LECTURE  II. 

at  all   events,   the   subject  must  be  treated  in   some  other 
manner. 

Upon  looking,  too,  at  these  immense  volumes,  it  was  but 
too  evident  that  a  very  small  portion  of  them  could  ever  be 
read  by  the  historical  student,  yet  it  is  perfectly  necessary 
that  some  idea  should  be  formed  of  them,  or  the  history  of 
Europe  and  the  character  of  its  inhabitants  cannot  properly 
be  understood. 

What  I  propose,  therefore,  to  the  student  is  this  :  to  select 
from  the  rest  the  Salique  Code,  and,  as  it  is  short,  I  recommend 
it  to  be  read  through  entirely.  It  is  impossible,  from  the 
perusal  of  it,  that  a  strong  impression  should  not  be  left  on 
the  mind  of  the  nature  and  character  of  our  barbaric  ances- 
tors. And  with  respect  to  the  other  codes,  it  appears  to  me 
that  a  very  sufficient  idea  of  these  may  be  formed,  if  the 
student  will  turn  over  the  leaves  of  these  codes  and  examine 
them  with  respect  to  the  following  points  : 

1st.  By  whom  the  laws  were  made. 

2d.  What  were  their  criminal  punishments.  ^ 

3d.  What  were  the  laws  respecting  the  recovery  of  debts. 

4th.  What  respecting  the  transmission  of  property. 

5th.  What  with  respect  to  the  female  sex. 

6th.  What  with  respect  to  the  liberty  of  the  subject  :  the 
laws  of  treason,  for  instance. 

7th.   By  whom  the  laws  were  administered. 

I  consider  an  inquiry  into  the  barbaric  codes  so  tedious  and 
yet  so  important,  that  to  illustrate  my  meaning,  and  to  make 
some  attempt  at  least  of  my  own  with  respect  to  them,  I  will 
venture  to  trespass  a  little  upon  my  hearers'  patience,  and 
take  a  survey  of  the  Salique  Code,  for  instance,  in  the  manner 
which  I  conceive  the  student  may  himself  adopt  with  respect 
to  the  remaining  codes.  Thus,  1st.  By  whom  was  this  Salique 
Code  drawn  up  and  enacted  ?  The  answer  to  this  inquiry 
may  be  found  in  the  prefaces,  which  are  on  the  whole  curious 
and  striking. 

The  Nation,  in  this  preface  to  the  Salique  Code,  seems  to 
speak  for  itself,  and  to  be  animated,  like  other  nations,  with 
a  very  sincere  opinion  of  its  own  merits.  It  is  renowned,  it 
seems,  founded  by  the  Deity,  profound  in  counsel,  with  every 
other  noble  and  excellent  quality  ;  and  it  is  added,  in  a  man- 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  53 

ner  that  must  be  considered  as  characteristic  of  the  times,  that 
"  it  is  entirely  free  from  heresy."  For  this  nation,  then,  the 
Salique  Code  seems  to  have  been  drawn  up  at  an  early  pe- 
riod, and  before  the  existence  of  royalty  among  them,  "  per 
proceres  illius  gentis  qui  tune  temporis  ejusdem  aderant  rec- 
tores."  Four  chiefs,  and  four  villages,  their  residence,  are 
mentioned. 

The  law  seems  afterwards  to  have  been  improved  by  Clo- 
vis,  Childebert,  and  Clothaire  :  this  is  stated  ;  and  then  follows 
a  state-prayer  which  is  more  than  usually  modest :  "  Vivat  qui 
Francos  diligit,  Christus  eorum  regnum  custodial,"  &c.  &c.  : 
and  the  whole  concludes  with  a  statement  of  the  merits  civil 
and  theological  of  the  nation  :  they  appear  indeed  to  have  been 
considerable.  "  Haec  est  enim  gens,  quae  parva  dum  esset 
numero,  fortis  robore  et  valida,  durissimum  Romanorum  jugum 
de  suis  cervicibus  excussit,  pugnando,"  &c.  &c. 

The  whole  must  be  considered  as  breathing  a  very  bold 
spirit  of  national  liberty,  and  the  authority,  on  which  the  whole 
was  rested,  seems  to  have  been  that  of  the  nation  and  its 
rulers,  mutually  cooperating  for  the  common  good.  The  legis- 
lature seems  afterwards  to  have  been,  the  monarchs  and  their 
free  assemblies. 

So  much  for  the  first  question,  by  whom  the  laws  were  made. 
2dly.  What  were  the  criminal  punishments  of  the  Salique 
Code  ? 

Homicide  was  not  capital  ;  a  striking  fact  to  begin  with, 
indicating  a  very  different  state  of  society  from  our  own.  The 
words  of  the  law  are  these,  (p.  333).  "  Si  quis  ingenuus 
Francum,  aut  hominem  barbarum  occiderit,  qui  lege  salica 
vivit,  octo  denariis,  qui  faciunt  solidos  ducentos,  culpabilis 
judicatur."  But  in  the  next  law  the  penalty  is  tripled  in  case 
of  concealment. 

These  barbarians,  therefore,  could  distinguish  the  nature  of 
different  crimes  ;  and  the  first  law  is  only  made  more  worthy 
of  consideration  by  the  second. 

The  conclusion  from  the  whole  is,  that  each  individual  of 
the  nation  was  still  an  independent  being,  who  would  not  suffer 
his  life  to  be  affected  by  any  crime  which  he  committed ; 
who  would  not  submit  to  restraint ;  who  neither  saw,  nor 
would  have  regarded,  the  benefit  that  is  derived  to  all,  by  the 


54  LECTURE  II. 

submission  of  each  man  to  rules  calculated  to  maintain  the 
security  of  life  and  to  protect  the  weak.  And  this  single 
feature  gives  at  once  an  idea  of  the  bold  character  of  our  early 
ancestors,  of  the  fierceness  of  these  independent  warriors. 
Other  crimes  (those  of  theft,  for  instance,)  are  in  like  manner 
punished  by  fines.  But  the  cases  are  all  mentioned,  different 
animals,  for  instance,  hogs,  sheep,  goats,  &c.  There  is  com- 
monly no  general  descriptions.  Now  when  legislators  make 
laws  against  particular  thefts  by  name,  the  intercourse  of  man- 
kind must  still  be  very  simple.  The  distinctions  of  crimes 
were  everywhere  observed. 

To  steal  from  a  cottage,  to  the  value  of  a  denarius,  was  pun- 
ished by  a  fine  of  fifteen  solidi  ;  and  thirty,  if  the  cottage  was 
broken  open.  So  much  for  the  law  with  respect  to  criminal 
punishments.  Next  with  respect  to  the  third  point. 

3dly.  The  provisions  concerning  debts  and  breach  of  cov- 
enant. Fine  was  still  in  the  first  place  the  punishment ;  and  in 
the  fifty-second  title  (p.  337,)  a  process  is  pointed  out  for  the 
forcible  recovery  of  what  is  due  :  it  is  in  the  last  result  to  be 
levied  and  distrained  by  public  officers.  There  is  no  mention 
of  imprisonment  at  the  rnercy  and  call  of  the  creditor,  the 
indolent  resource  of  more  civilized  nations. 

4tLly.  With  respect  to  the  transmission  of  property,  the 
power  of  bequeathing  it  by  testament  seems  not  yet  to  have 
been  thought  of.  The  law  says,  concerning  the  allodial  land, 
(p.  341,)  that  the  children  of  the  deceased  were  to  succeed, 
next  the  father  and  mother,  next  the  brothers  and  sisters, 
lastly  the  sisters  of  the  father,  the  aunts.  "  Si  quis  homo, 
mortuus  fuerit,  et  filios  non  dimiserit,  si  pater  aut  mater  super- 
fuerint,"  &c.  &c. 

Then  follows  the  famous  restriction  of  the  Sal,  or  home- 
stead and  the  land  immediately  around  it,  to  the  male,  &c. 
u  De  terra  vero  salica  nullas  paries  hereditatis  mulieri  veniat, 
sed  ad  virilem  sexum  tota  terrae  hereditas  perveniet."  The 
institution,  therefore,  of  property  in  land  seems  now  to  have 
been  established,  though  not  in  the  time  of  Tacitus, — an  im- 
portant step  in  the  civilization  of  mankind.  But  there  seems 
nothing  said  of  a  power  to  bequeath  it  by  testament  at  the 
will  of  the  possessor. 

Next,  with  respect  to  the  laws  concerning  the  female  sex. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  55 

Under  the  14th  head  (p.  272),  adultery  seems  to  have  been 
punished  by  a  fine,  but  there  is  nothing  said  of  divorce.  Mar- 
riages within  certain  limits  of  consanguinity  are  forbidden. 

The  conclusion  from  these  provisions  is,  that  attention  was 
paid  to  the  intercourse  between  the  sexes.  But  from  another 
part  of  the  code  the  deference  that  was  paid  to  the  female  sex 
is  made  very  striking. 

Under  the  32d  head,  by  the  6th  clause,  he  who  accused 
another  of  cowardice  was  to  be  fined  three  solidi  ;  but  by  the 
clause  preceding,  they  who  accused  a  woman  of  want  of  chas- 
tity, and  could  not  prove  their  allegation,  were  to  be  fined 
forty-five  solidi.  A  false  imputation,  therefore,  on  the  chastity 
of  a  woman  was  made  a  crime  of  far  greater  importance  than 
even  an  imputation  on  the  courage  of  a  man,  and  that  man,  a 
Frank. 

The  respectability  of  the  female  character  therefore  is  clear. 
And  there  is  no  point  of  more  importance  to  any  nation  than 
this  ;  domestic  happiness,  and  private  virtue,  which  is  so  con- 
nected with  public  virtue,  all  follow  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  the  respectability  of  the  female  character,  and 
cannot  indeed  otherwise  exist. 

With  respect  to  the  6th  head,  the  laws  of  treason,  it  may 
be  observed  ;  that,  of  treason,  or  offences  against  the  state, 
there  seems  no  notice  taken.  Every  duty  of  the  sort  was 
comprehended  in  the  general  duty  of  resisting  or  opposing  the 
enemies  of  the  state  by  personal  service. 

What  is  meant  by  civil  liberty,  —  the  modification  of  natural 
liberty,  and  the  relative  duties  and  apprehensions  of  the  ruler 
and  the  subject,  —  seem  scarcely  to  have  appeared  in  a  society 
like  that  of  the  early  Franks. 

Lastly,  with  respect  to  the  administration  of  these  laws.  — 
In  the  Salique  and  other  codes  there  are  various  officers  men- 
tioned :  superior  and  inferior  judges  ;  witnesses  are  also  men- 
tioned ;  and  markets  and  public  meetings,  where  justice  seems 
to  have  been  administered. 

But  it  must  be  observed  that  the  Barbarian  codes  had 
always  recourse  to  a  system  of  fines  ;  it  seems,  therefore, 
reasonable  to  ask,  What  was  done,  when  the  offender  had  no 
means  of  paying  them  ?  In  a  simple  state  of  society  a  fine 
must  have  been  a  serious  punishment  ;  neither  capital,  nor 


56  LECTURE  II. 

the  precious  metals  could  have  existed  in  any  abundance. 
To  this  question  the  laws  themselves  do  not  supply  any 
answer. 

In  any  particular  case  of  homicide,  when  the  offender  could 
not  pay,  a  process  is  pointed  out  for  satisfaction.  In  the 
61st  head,  his  relations  and  friends  were  to  answer  out  of  their 
own  possessions  ;  and,  in  the  last  resource,  if  there  were  none 
of  them  willing,  he  was  to  compound  with  a  fine  for  his  life. 
Nothing  is  said  of  imprisonment,  or  corporal  punishment ; 
which  last  was  confined  to  the  case  of  slaves  :  and  the  conclu- 
sion perhaps  is,  for  I  am  left  to  my  own  conjecture,  that  the 
strong  distinctions  of  the  poor  and  the  rich  had  not  yet  made 
their  appearance,  and  that  the  fines  were  proportioned  to  the 
general  wealth  of  the  individuals  of  the  community  ;  that  land 
was  still  easily  procured,  and  society  still  in  a  very  imperfect 
state.  Charlemagne,  for  instance,  many  years  after,  trans- 
planted at  once  ten  thousand  Saxons  and  fixed  them  in  his 
own  territories.  Much  land  was  therefore  still  waste  or  loosely 
occupied.  These  Barbaric  laws  were,  therefore,  I  conclude, 
at  first  intended  to  exhibit  to  contending  individuals,  what 
might  be  considered  as  a  reasonable  means  of  terminating  their 
quarrels  ;  what  the  one  ought  to  offer,  and  the  other  to  accept. 
The  words  of  the  Prologue  to  the  laws  are  these  :  "  Placuit 
atque  convenit  inter  Francos  et  eorum  proceres  ut  propter 
servandum  inter  se  pacis  studium,  omnia  incrementa  veterum 
rixarum  resecare  deberent."  In  a  rude  state  of  society  indi- 
viduals involved  in  their  quarrel  their  relations  and  friends. 
These  would  become,  in  a  certain  respect,  umpires  of  the 
quarrel.  These  laws  afforded  them  a  sort  of  rule  by  which 
they  were  to  judge,  and  they  would  be  themselves  disposed 
to  enforce  the  observance  of  these  rules  and  in  some  respects 
to  do  the  office  of  the  state.  Afterwards,  as  the  kings  gained 
authority,  they  and  their  officers  would  be  more  able  them- 
selves to  enforce  their  own  regulations.  Efforts  to  do  this, 
and  the  power  of  doing  it,  are  apparent  in  the  subsequent  codes. 
But  the  disposition  to  revenge  their  own  affronts  and  injuries 
is  so  natural  to  men  who  comprehend  every  merit  in  the 
virtue  of  personal  courage,  that  centuries  elapsed  before  our 
rude  forefathers  could  be  brought  to  accept  any  decision  in 
their  quarrels  but  that  of  their  own  swords. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  57 

I  must  observe  of  this  Salique  code  and  of  all  the  other 
Barbarian  codes,  that  with  respect  to  our  first  question,  the 
great  question  in  legislation,  By  whom  are  the  laws  made  ? 
great  dispute  exists  among  antiquaries  and  philosophers. 

The  power  of  the  kings,  and  the  nature  and  power  of  these 
first  assemblies,  are  subjects  of  great  debate.  In  this  Salique 
law  the  form  and  spirit  and  authority  of  the  whole  seem  to 
have  been  of  a  very  democratic  nature. 

In  reading  all  these  codes,  reference  must  continually  be 
had  to  Tacitus. ,  The  codes  and  his  account  of  the  Germans 
mutually  confirm  and  illustrate  each  other. 

His  description  of  their  assemblies  may  be  compared  with 
this  preface  to  the  Salique  law,  and  with  the  accounts  given  of 
the  other  codes  ;  and  on  the  whole,  the  system  of  legislation 
among  these  northern  nations  must  be  considered  as  originally 
of  a  very  popular  nature. 

I  have  taken  this  slight  view  of  the  Salique  code  in  the 
leading  points  which  I  mentioned,  for  the  purpose  of  exem- 
plifying the  manner  in  which  I  conceive  any  system  of  laws 
may  be  generally  considered,  more  particularly  those  of  the 
Barbarian  codes,  which  yet  remain,  and  which  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  examine,  but  in  some  such  general  way.  But  I  must 
not  omit  to  observe,  that  whenever  the  laws  of  a  nation  can 
be  perused,  a  variety  of  conclusions  can  be  drawn  from  them, 
which  the  laws  themselves  were  never  intended  to  convey  ; 
conclusions,  that  relate  to  the  manners  and  situation  of  a 
nation,  more  certain  and  important  than  can  in  any  other  way 
be  obtained.  I  will  give  a  specimen  of  this  sort  of  reasoning, 
and  my  hearer  must  hereafter  employ  the  same  sort  of  rea- 
soning on  these  codes,  and  on  every  system  of  laws,  which 
he  has  ever  an  opportunity  of  considering.  For  instance, 
there  is  one  head  that  respects  petty  thefts  of  different 
kinds. 

He  who  stole  a  knife  was  to  be  fined  fifteen  solidi  ;  but 
though  he  stole  as  much  flax  as  he  could  carry,  he  was  only 
fined  three.  Iron  was,  therefore,  difficult  to  procure,  or  its 
manufacture  not  easy.  The  fertility  of  the  land  had  done 
more  for  these  Franks  than  their  own  patience  or  ingenuity  ; 
i.  e.  they  were  barbarians.  Again,  he  who  killed  another 

VOL.    I.  8 


58  LECTURE  II. 

was  only  fined ;  but  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  arose 
from  any  superior  tenderness  of  disposition.  There  is  a  dis- 
tinct head  in  these  laws  (the  31st)  on  the  subject  of  mutila- 
tions ;  the  very  first  clause  runs  thus  : 

u  Si  quis  alteri  manum  aut  pedem  truncaverit,  vel  oculum 
effoderit,  aut  auriculum  vel  nasum  amputaverit,"  &c.  &c. 

The  most  horrible  excesses  evidently  took  place.  Nothing 
more  need  be  said  of  the  manners  or  disposition  of  a  people, 
in  whose  laws  such  outrages  are  particularized. 

That  union  of  -  tenderness  and  courage,  of  sympathy  and 
fortitude,  of  the  softer  and  severer  virtues,  which  forms  the 
perfection  of  the  human  character,  is  not  to  be  found  among 
savage  nations,  it  is  only  the  occasional  and  inestimable  pro- 
duction of  civilized  life. 

Again,  there  is  mention  made  of  hedges  and  enclosures  ; 
agriculture  had,  therefore,  made  some  progress. 

But  among  the  petty  felonies  there  is  one  mentioned, — 
that  of  ploughing  and  sowing  another  man's  land,  &c.  "Si 
quis  campum  alienurn  araverit,  et  seminaverit,"  &c., —  a  strange 
offence.  Where  was  the  owner  ?  —  was  he  too  negligent,  at 
too  great  a  distance,  or  too  feeble  to  take  care  of  his  prop- 
erty ?  Every  supposition  is  unfavorable  ;  and  the  progress 
of  agriculture  and  of  society  must  have  still  been  very  incom- 
plete. I  conceive  that  there  existed  among  these  nations  and 
in  these  times,  wandering  savages  or  settlers,  as  now  in  the 
back  settlements  of  America,  that  are  called  by  the  amusing 
name  of  u  squatters,"  a  species  of  human  locusts  that  take 
possession  of  a  piece  of  land  without  asking  leave  of  any  one, 
and  remain  there  till  they  rove  away  in  search  of  better,  or  are 
driven  off  by  the  owner. 

But  to  return  to  the  Salique  law,  —  Cars  and  cart-horses, 
mills,  and  some  of  the  more  common  occupations  of  life,  as 
smiths  and  bakers,  are  enumerated  ;  some  progress  must,  there- 
fore, have  been  made.  He  who  killed  a  Frank  was  fined  two 
hundred  solidi  ;  he  who  killed  a  Roman  only  one  hundred  ;  the 
Roman  was  therefore  in  a  state  of  depression.  This  is  the  sort 
of  reasoning  which  my  hearers  may  extend  to  a  variety  of  par- 
ticulars, and  must  already  perfectly  understand. 

In  the  Salique  and  other  codes,  slaves  are  mentioned,  male 
and  female,  household  servants,  freedmen,  and  those  who 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  59 

were  free  from  birth,  and  more  descriptions  of  persons  and 
places  and  things,  than  can  now  be  well  understood.  Here 
lies  the  province  of  the  antiquary,  who  has  at  least  the 
merit  of  clearing  the  way  and  providing  materials  for  the 
philosopher,  and  is  thus  mediately,  or  immediately,  if  pos- 
sessed of  any  philosophic  discrimination  himself,  an  instructor 
of  mankind. 

Such  is,  I  conceive,  the  manner  in  which  the  Salique  and 
the  other  remaining  codes  may  be  examined,  and  this  I  must 
now  leave  the  student  to  do  for  himself. 

All  the  other  codes  will  be  found  very  similar  in  their  gen- 
eral nature,  but  all  indicating  a  more  advanced  state  of  society, 
than  can  be  found  in  the  Salique  code. 

The  Burgundians,  the  Lombards  and  the  Visigoths  had 
been  more  connected  with  the  Romans,  and  their  laws  are, 
therefore,  favorably  distinguished  from  the  codes  of  the  more 
simple  and  rude  Barbarians. 

To  the  law  of  the  Burgundians  there  is  a  preface  worth 
reading. 

The  Preface  of  Lindenbrogius,  which  must  by  all  means 
be  read,  gives  some  account  of  the  time  and  manners  in 
which  these  codes  were  promulgated,  and  to  them  I  refer. 
In  many  parts  of  these  codes  the  reader  will  perceive  the 
origin  of  many  of  the  forms  and  maxims  that  exist  to  this 
moment  in  the  systems  of  European  law.  These  Barbarian 
codes  were  followed  by  what  are  called  the  Capitularies, 
a  word  signifying  any  composition  divided  into  chapters. 
These  were  promulgated  by  the  subsequent  monarchs  :  by 
Childebert,  Clotaire,  Carlornagne,  and  Pepin,  but  above  all 
by  Charlemagne  :  succeeding  princes  added  others.  They  are 
to  be  found  in  Lindenbrogius,  but  the  best  edition  of  them  is  by 
Baluze,  in  two  folio  volumes.  To  the  codes  and  to  the  Capitu- 
laries in  Lindenbrogius,  and  in  Baluze,  are  added  the  Formu- 
laria  of  Marculphus.  These  formularia  are  the  forms  of  forensic 
proceedings  and  of  legal  instruments.  Marculphus  was  a  monk 
that  seems  to  have  lived  so  early  as  660  ;  so  naturally  is  law 
connected  with  precision  and  form  ;  and  so  soon,  even  before 
660,  was  it  found  necessary  to  reduce  the  institutions  and  legal 
proceedings  of  rude  barbarians  into  that  sort  of  technical  pre- 
cision, which  is  so  fully  exhibited  in  our  modern  practice,  and 


60  LECTURE  II. 

which  is  found  so  necessary  by  lawyers,  and  considered  (some- 
what thoughtlessly)  so  unmeaning  by  others.  All  these  capitu- 
laries and  formularies  it  is  not  very  possible,  —  it  may  not 
indeed,  be  very  useful,  —  for  the  general  student  to  read  ;  but 
he  may  look  over  the  heads  and  select  some  few  for  his  perusal. 
Many  of  them  seem  to  be  of  an  ecclesiastical  nature,  and  they 
are  interspersed  with  various  state  papers.  And  the  influence 
which  religion,  and  still  more  the  church,  had  obtained  over 
these  northern  conquerors,  is  evident  in  every  page. 

It  appears  that  extreme  unction,  confession,  and  the  dis- 
tinguishing rites  of  the  Romish  church,  were  early  established 
among  them  ;  solemn,  and  indeed  very  affecting  church  ser- 
vices, for  the  different  trials  by  ordeal,  and  for  the  ceremonies 
of  excommunication  :  everywhere  there  are  passages,  which 
when  found  in  legal  instruments  and  public  state  papers,  strong- 
ly mark  the  temper  and  character  of  the  times.  And  it  is  on 
this  account  that  a  philosopher  like  Montesquieu,  from  the 
perusal  of  musty  records  like  these,  can  exhibit  the  manners 
and  opinions  of  distant  ages. 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  introduce  to  your  curiosity  these 
Barbaric  codes. 

It  might  be  natural  to  ask,  What,  in  the  mean  time,  became 
of  the  conquered  nation  of  the  Romans  ?  It  may  be  answered 
in  a  general  manner,  that  they  seem  to  have  been  allowed  to 
live  under  their  own  laws,  if  they  did  not  prefer  the  laws  of  the 
Barbarian  state,  to  which  they  belonged  :  that  their  situation 
seems  to  have  been  marked  by  depression,  but  not  to  the  ex- 
tent that  might  have  been  expected.  But  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  enter  further  into  subjects  of  this  nature. 

There  is  a  concise  work  by  Mr.  Butler,  "  Hora?  Juridical  "  : 
to  this  I  must  refer  ;  it  will  be  of  great  use  in  giving  you 
information  about  the  different  codes  and  systems  of  law  that 
obtained  in  Europe  during  these  earlier  ages  :  such  informa- 
tion, indeed,  as  few  will  be  able  to  collect  for  themselves, 
and  yet  such  as  every  man  of  education  should  be  furnished 
with. 

Gibbon  and  Montesquieu,  through  all  this  period  of  his- 
tory, you  will  refer  to.  But  the  Abbe  de  Mably  is  the  writer, 
who  will  afford  you  the  best  assistance,  given  neither  in  the 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  61 

distant,  obscure  manner  of  Gibbon,  nor  with  the  affectation 
and  paradox  of  Montesquieu. 

More  than  I  have  now  done  on  the  subjects  of  this  lecture, 
I  cannot  venture  to  attempt.  I  have  already  sufficiently  tres- 
passed upon  your  patience  in  calling  here  your  attention  to 
topics  which  are  only  fit  for  the  student  in  the  closet,  and 
which  can  only  be  comprehended  by  the  steady  perusal  of  the 
very  books  I  am  recommending  ;  books  which  I  am  to  sup- 
pose at  present  unknown  to  you  :  and  on  the  whole,  therefore, 
I  must  content  myself  if  you  bear  away  from  the  lecture  these 
following  general  impressions  :  — 

1st,  then  (proceeding  in  a  reverse  order),  That  some  knowl- 
edge should  be  obtained  of  the  Barbaric  codes,  and  that  the 
Salique  law  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen  ;  some  knowledge, 
likewise,  of  the  systems  of  law  under  which  the  Romans 
then  lived  ;  and  that  Butler  may  be  referred  to,  his  u  Hora3 
Juridical." 

2dly.  That  the  different  subjects  I  have  mentioned,  the 
reigns  of  Clovis,  Pepin,  Charlemagne,  of  chivalry,  &c.  &c., 
are  those  to  which  you  had  best  direct  your  attention  in  the 
study  of  the  dark  ages  :  select  them,  I  mean,  and  study  them 
in  preference  to  others. 

3dly.  That  these  dark  ages  must  be  studied,  because  you 
ought  to  know  what  has  been  the  original  formation  of  the 
character  of  the  European  individual,  and  of  the  European 
governments  ;  how  they  came  to  exist,  as  you  everywhere 
see  them. 

4thly.  That  I  conceive  Butler  for  the  outlines,  and  Gibbon 
for  the  detail,  with  Renault  or  Millot,  and,  lastly,  with  the 
Preface  to  Robertson's  Charles  the  Fifth,  will  be  sufficient  for 
those,  who  wish  only  to  find  the  shortest  possible  course. 

5thly.  That  the  Abbe  de  Mably  and  those  books  I  have 
mentioned  to-day,  will  supply  ample  information,  and  all  that 
I  can  think  necessary,  to  any  historical  student  who  is  not  also 
ambitious  of  the  merit  of  an  antiquary. 

It  is  many  years  since  I  drew  up  this  lecture  which  you 
have  just  heard  ;  there  has  now  appeared  a  History  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  by  Mr.  Hallam.  You  will  there  see  all  the 
subjects  that  occupy  all  the  early  part  of  my  present  course 


62  LECTURE  II. 

of  lectures  regularly  discussed,  and  very  ably  ;  I  may  add  too, 
wherever  the  subject  admitted  of  it,  very  beautifully. 

I  have  been  obliged,  from  the  known  learning  and  talents 
of  the  author,  to  look  the  work  over,  not  merely  for  my  own 
instruction  in  general,  but  to  ascertain  whether  I  had  been 
misled  myself  by  any  of  the  books  on  which  I  had  depended. 
You,  in  like  manner,  must  refer  to  the  work,  and  compare  it 
with  others,  for  the  author  is  not  only  very  able  and  well  in- 
formed, but  a  sufficiently  scrupulous  critic  of  the  labors  of  his 
predecessors.  This  work  may  be  also  recommended  to  you, 
as  exhibiting  for  your  perusal,  in  a  convenient  form,  many 
subjects  of  great  importance,  and  most  of  those  we  have 
referred  to  ;  and  you  may  see  by  his  references,  and  may 
judge  by  the  nature  of  the  subjects  themselves,  how  little  you 
are  likely  to  study  them  yourselves  (I  mean  you  no  disrespect, 
I  allude  to  those  of  you  who  are  to  engage  in  the  business  of 
the  world)  ;  to  study  them,  I  should  say,  with  that  patience 
and  activity  which  an  antiquary  and  philosopher,  like  Mr. 
Hallam,  though  himself  living  in  the  world  and  an  ornament  to 
society,  has  so  meritoriously  and  so  remarkably  displayed. 


LECTURE  III. 

MAHOMET  — PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY,  &c. 

I  HAVE  hitherto  directed  your  attention  to  the  Romans  and 
Barbarians,  their  collision,  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  the 
settlement  of  the  Barbarians  in  the  different  provinces  of  Eu- 
rope, and  the  dark  ages  that  ensued. 

On  these  dark  ages  the  light  gradually  dawned,  till  at  length 
appeared  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reformation. 

It  is  in  this  manner,  therefore,  that  you  have  presented  to 
you,  by  the  addition  of  this  last  circumstance,  a  subject  that 
is  a  sort  of  whole. 

You  begin  with  marking  the  decline  and  depression  of  so- 
ciety, and  you  then  watch  its  progress  to  a  state  of  great 
comparative  elevation. 

But,  instead  of  conducting  your  thoughts  onward  from  the 
one  to  the  other,  in  this  natural  succession,  I  must  now 
interrupt  them,  because  the  great  concerns  of  Europe  were  in 
fact  thus  broken  in  upon  and  interrupted  ;  and,  though  the 
whole  of  this  interruption  may  be  almost  considered  as  a  sort 
of  episode  to  the  main  subject,  I  have  no  alternative  but  to 
produce  it  now,  in  its  real  place,  and  you  must  join  the  chain 
hereafter  yourselves  ;  the  links  of  which  must  be  considered 
as  thus  for  a  certain  interval  separated  from  each  other.  For 
the  truth  is,  that  you  will  scarcely  have  begun  to  read  the 
books,  that  I  have  recommended,  when  you  will  be  called 
upon  to  observe  a  most  extraordinary  revolution  that  had  taken 
place  in  the  east. 

An  individual  had  started  up  amidst  the  sands  of  Arabia, 
had  persuaded  his  countrymen  that  he  was  the  prophet  of 
God,  had  contrived  to  combine  in  his  service  two  of  the  most 
powerful  passions  of  the  human  heart  ;  the  love  of  glory  here, 


64  LECTURE  III. 

and  the  desire  of  happiness  hereafter  ;  and,  triumphant  in  him- 
self and  seconded  by  his  followers,  had  transmitted  a  faith 
and  an  empire,  that  at  length  extended  through  Asia,  Africa, 
Spain,  and  nearly  through  Europe  itself ;  and  had  left  in  his- 
tory a  more  memorable  name,  and  on  his  fellow-creatures  a 
more  wide  and  lasting  impression,  than  had  ever  before  been 
produced  by  the  energies  of  a  single  mind.  This  individual 
was  Mahomet. 

We  are  invited  to  examine  and  estimate  a  revolution  like 
this  by  many  considerations.  I  will  mention  some  of  them. 
The  learning  of  the  disciples  of  Mahomet  is  at  one  particular 
period  connected  with  the  history  of  literature.  The  Sara- 
cens (for  this  is  their  general,  but  not  very  intelligible  appella- 
tion) contended  with  the  Franks  and  Greeks  for  Europe,  with 
the  Latins  for  the  Holy  Land,  with  the  Visigoths  for  Spain. 
The  Caliphs,  or  successors  of  the  Arabian  Prophet,  were 
possessed  of  Syria,  Persia,  and  Egypt,  and  through  different 
eras  of  their  power  exhibited  the  most  opposite  prodigies  of 
simplicity  and  magnificence  ;  these  are  powerful  claims  on  our 
attention.  The  Turks,  who  became  converts  to  the  religion 
of  Mahomet,  gradually  swelled  into  a  great  nation,  obtained 
a  portion  of  Europe,  and  have  materially  influenced  its  his- 
tory. 

If  we  turn  from  the  descendants  of  Mahomet  to  Mahomet 
himself,  we  must  observe,  that  his  religion  professed  to  be 
derived  from  divine  inspiration  ;  and  is,  from  its  very  preten- 
sions, entitled  to  the  examination  of  every  rational  being. 
To  be  unacquainted  with  this  religion,  is  to  be  ignorant  of  the 
faith  of  a  large  division  of  mankind.  An  inquiry  into  the 
rise  and  propagation  of  it  will  amplify  our  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature  ;  and  an  attention  to  the  life  of  the  Prophet  may 
enlarge  our  comprehension  of  the  many  particular  varieties 
of  the  human  character.  The  religion  of  Mahomet  has,  in 
the  last  place,  been  often  compared  with  the  religion  of 
Christ ;  and  the  success  of  the  Koran  has  been  adduced  to 
weaken  the  argument  that  is  drawn  from  the  propagation  of 
the  Gospel. 

If  such,  therefore,  be  the  subject  before  us,  it  is  evidently 
sufficient  to  awaken  our  curiosity,  and  we  may  be  grateful 
to  those  meritorious  scholars,  who  have  saved  us  from  the 


MAHOMET.  65 

necessity  of  pursuing  our  inquiries  through  the  volumes  of 
the  original  authors.  The  Arabic  writers  have  been  trans- 
lated ;  and  the  interesting  occupation  of  a  few  weeks,  or  even 
days,  may  now  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  our  mind  on  topics, 
that  might  otherwise  have  justly  demanded  the  labor  of 
years. 

With  respect,  then,  to  the  books,  that  are  to  be  read,  I 
would  propose  to  you,  in  the  first  place,  to  turn  to  the  work 
of  Sale,  —  Sale's  Koran  ;  —  read  the  Preface  and  his  Prelimi- 
nary Dissertation,  consulting,  at  the  same  time,  his  references 
to  the  Koran.  Of  the  Koran,  you  may  afterwards  read  a  few 
chapters,  to  form  an  idea  of  the  whole.  And,  as  it  is  a  code 
of  jurisprudence  to  the  Mussulman,  as  well  as  a  theological 
creed,  you  may  easily,  by  referring  to  the  index,  collect  the 
opinions  and  precepts  of  Mahomet  on  all  important  points. 
You  may  then  turn  to  the  Life  of  Mahomet,  by  Prideaux  ; 
and,  on  the  same  subject,  to  the  Modern  Universal  History  ; 
you  may  then  read  the  fiftieth  chapter  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  and 
close  with  the  Bampton  Lectures  of  Professor  White. 

Prideaux,  and  the  authors  of  ^the  Modern  History,  you  will 
probably  think  unreasonably  eager  to  expose  the  faults  of  the 
Prophet,  and  you  will  surely  be  attracted  to  a  second  consid- 
eration of  the  work  of  Sale  by  the  candor,  the  reasonableness, 
and  the  great  knowledge  of  the  subject,  which  that  excellent 
author  appears  everywhere  to  display. 

These  works,  however,  will  but  the  belter  prepare  you  to 
discern  the  merit  of  the  splendid  and  complete  account  which 
Mr.  Gibbon  has  given  of  the  Arabian  legislator  and  prophet. 
The  historian  has  descended  on  this  magnificent  subject  in  all 
the  fulness  of  his  strength.  His  fiftieth  chapter  is  not  without 
his  characteristic  faults,  but  it  has  all  his  merits  ;  and  to  ap- 
proach the  account  of  Mahomet  and  the  Caliphs,  in  Gibbon, 
after  travelling  through  the  same  subject  in  the  volumes  of 
the  Modern  History,  is  to  pass  through  the  different  regions 
of  the  country,  whose  heroes  these  authors  have  described  ; 
it  is  to  turn  from  the  one  Arabia  to  the  other  ;  from  the  sands 
and  rocks  of  the  wilderness  to  the  happy  land  of  fertility  and 
freshness,  where  every  landscape  is  luxuriance,  and  every  gale 
is  odor. 

The  Bampton  Lectures  have  received  very  unqualified  ap- 

VOL.    I.  9 


66  LECTURE  III. 

probation  from  the  public  ;  and  have  won  the  more  cold  and 
limited,  and  therefore  more  decisive,  praise  of  Mr.  Gibbon. 
The  estimate  of  the  student  will  probably  be  found  between 
the  two,  much  beyond  the  latter,  and  much  within  the  former. 
There  is  not  all  the  information  given,  which  the  knowledge  of 
Professor  White  might  and  ought  to  have  afforded.  The 
references  to  the  Arabic  authors  should  have  been  translated 
and  produced.  The  whole  is  written,  not  in  the  spirit  of  a 
critic  and  a  judge,  but  of  an  eloquent  advocate  rejoicing  to 
run  his  course,  from  a  confidence  in  the  arguments  which  he 
displays.  The  style  is  always  too  full  and  sounding,  and  the 
argument  itself  is  often  robbed  of  its  due  effect  from  a  want 
of  that  simplicity  of  statement,  so  natural,  so  favorable  to 
the  cause  of  truth.  Yet  these  celebrated  discourses  cannot 
fail  of  accomplishing  their  end,  of  enforcing  upon  the  reader 
the  general  evidence  of  his  owrf  faith,  and  of  animating  his 
mind  with  the  contrast  between  the  religion  of  the  Koran  and 
the  Gospel,  between  Mahomet  and  Jesus  ;  the  contrast  be- 
tween falsehood  and  truth,  between  the  fierce  and  polluted 
passions  of  the  earth  and  the  pure  and  perfect  holiness  of 
heaven. 

I  had  intended  to  have  briefly  stated  the  leading  points 
of  the  life  and  religion  of  Mahomet  ;  but  I  had  rather,  that 
the  guides  I  have  mentioned  should  conduct  you  through 
the  whole  of  a  subject,  which  is  in  fact  too  interesting  and 
important  to  be  touched  upon  in  a  general  or  summary 
manner.  The  effect  of  inquiry  will  be  materially  to  diminish 
the  general  impression  of  wonder,  with  which  every  reflecting 
mind  must  have  originally  surveyed  a  triumph  of  imposture 
so  extensive  as  that  of  Mahomet.  The  causes  of  his  success 
have  been  well  explained  by  the  authors  I  have  mentioned. 
Yet,  gifted  as  he  was  with  every  mental  and  personal  quali- 
fication, and  highly  assisted  in  his  enterprise  by  the  moral 
and  political  situation  of  his  countrymen,  the  student  cannot 
fail  to  observe,  how  slow  and  painful  was  the  progress  of  his 
empire  and  religion.  After  becoming  affluent  at  an  early 
period  of  life,  he  continued  fifteen  years  in  habits  of  occa- 
sional solitude  and  meditation.  He  was  three  years  in 
effecting  the  conversion  of  his  wife,  his  slave,  his  cousin, 
and  eleven  others  ;  he  was  ten  years  employed  in  extending 


MAHOMET.  67 

the  number  of  his  disciples  within  the  walls  of  Mecca.  This 
long  interval  (twenty-eight  years)  had  elapsed,  before  the 
guardians  of  the  established  idolatry  were  duly  alarmed,  and 
proceeded,  from  opposition,  at  last  to  attempt  his  life.  After 
flying  from  Mecca,  and  being  received  and  protected  at  Me- 
dina, it  was  six  years  before  he  could  again  approach  his  native 
city  ;  two  more  before  he  could  establish  there  his  sovereignty 
and  his  worship  ;  and  two  more,  before  the  various  tribes  of 
Arabia  could  be  brought  to  acknowledge  him  for  their  prophet. 
On  several  occasions,  the  fate  of  himself  and  of  his  religion 
hung  on  the  most  wavering  and  doubtful  balance.  It  was 
not  Mahomet,  who  conquered  the  east,  but  his  successors  ; 
and,  had  he  not  attached  to  his  fortunes  and  faith  a  few  men  of 
singular  virtues  and  extraordinary  military  talents,  his  name 
and  his  religion  might  have  perished  with  him,  and  the  Ara- 
bians, at  his  death,  might  have  relapsed  into  their  former  hab- 
its of  loose  political  association,  and  of  blind,  unthinking  idol- 
atry. 

To  Mahomet,  indeed,  his  success  must  have  appeared  com- 
plete. Arabia  must  have  been  the  natural  boundary  of  his 
thoughts,  and  every  thing  in  Arabia  he  had  conquered,  and 
it  was  his  own  :  he  was  become  the  great  chief  of  his  nation, 
and  he  held  a  still  dearer  empire  over  their  feelings  and  their 
faith  :  he  was  the  leader  of  an  invincible  army,  but  he  was  more 
than  an  earthly  conqueror  ;  he  was  considered  as  the  prophet 
of  God  ;  mere  humanity  was  below  him.  It  was  at  this  mo- 
ment of  his  elevation,  when  he  was  preparing  to  extend  his 
temporal  and  spiritual  dominion  to  Syria,  that  the  angel  of  death 
was  at  hand  to  close  his  eyes  for  ever  on  the  prospects  of  hu- 
man greatness,  and  to  remove  him  to  the  presence  of  that  awful 
Being,  whose  laws  he  had  violated,  whose  name  he  had  abused, 
and  whose  creatures  he  had  deceived. 

That  an  enthusiast  like  Mahomet  should  arise  in  Arabia 
can  be  no  matter  of  surprise  ;  the  nation  itself  was  of  a  tem- 
perament highly  impetuous  and  ardent,  unaccustomed  to  the 
severer  exercises  of  the  understanding,  the  inquiries  of  science, 
and  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  devoted  only  to  eloquence 
and  poetry,  the  impulses  of  the  passions,  and  the  visions  of 
the  imagination.  An  enthusiast,  like  himself,  had  arisen  and 
been  destroyed  a  little  before  his  death  ;  another,  soon  after. 


68  LECTURE  III. 

In  the  time  of  the  Caliphs,  after  an  interval  of  two  hundred 
and  sixty  years,  appeared  the  Arabian  preacher  Carmath.  He 
too,  like  Mahomet,  made  his  converts,  dispersed  his  apostles 
amongst  the  tribes  of  the  desert,  and  they  were  everywhere 
successful.  The  Carmathians  were  sublimed  into  the  same  fa- 
natical contempt  of  death  and  devotion  to  their  chiefs,  as  had 
been  before  the  followers  of  Mahomet.  They  overran  Arabia, 
trampled  upon  Mecca,  and  were  one  of  the  effective  causes  of 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Caliphs. 

More  temperate  climates,  more  civilized  countries,  than 
those  of  the  east,  even  times  improved  like  our  own,  have  wit- 
nessed the  rise,  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  success,  of  enthu- 
siasts, who  have  made  considerable  approaches  to  the  pre- 
tensions of  Mahomet.  The  German  Swedenborg  entirely 
equalled  him  in  his  claims  on  the  credulity  of  mankind  ;  he 
affirmed  distinctly,  that  he  had  a  regular  communication  with 
heaven.  Like  other  enthusiasts,  he  was  unable  to  prove  his 
mission  ;  but  he  convinced  himself,  and  had  his  converts  in 
different  parts  of  Europe. 

Of  Mahomet,  as  of  others,  it  is  often  asked  whether  he  was 
an  enthusiast  or  an  impostor.  He  was  both.  In  men  like  him 
the  characters  are  never  long  separated.  It  is  the  essence  of 
enthusiasm  to  overrate  its  end,  to  overvalue  its  authority  ;  all 
means  are  therefore  easily  sanctified,  that  can  accomplish  its 
purposes.  Imposture  is  only  one  amongst  others  ;  and,  as  it 
is  the  nature  of  enthusiasm  at  the  same  time  to  overlook  the 
distinctions  of  reason  and  propriety,  what  is  or  what  is  not 
imposture  is  not  always  discerned  ;  nor  would  be  long  regard- 
ed, if  it  were. 

The  designs  of  Mahomet  are  often  supposed  to  have  origi- 
nated early  in  life,  and  to  have  been  formed  from  a  long,  com- 
prehensive, and  profound  meditation  on  the  situation  of  his 
countrymen,  and  the  nations  of  the  east. 

It  is  not  thus,  that  great  changes  in  the  affairs  of  men  are 
produced  ;  it  is  not  thus,  that  the  founders  of  dynasties,  the 
authors  of  revolutions,  and  the  conquerors  of  the  world  pro- 
ceed :  men  like  these  are  formed,  not  only  by  original  temper- 
ament and  genius,  but  by  situation  and  by  the  occasion  ;  their 
ideas  open  with  their  circumstances,  their  ambition  expands 
with  their  fortune  ;  they  are  gifted  with  the  prophetic  eye,  that 


MAHOMET.  69 

can  see  the  moment  that  is  pregnant  with  the  future  ;  they  are 
distinguishable  by  the  faculty,  that  discerns  what  is  really  im- 
possible from  what  only  appears  to  be  so  ;  they  can  avail  them- 
selves of  the  powers  and  capacities  of  every  thing  around  them  ; 
the  time,  the  place,  the  circumstances,  the  society,  the  nation, 
all  are  at  the  proper  instant  understood,  and  wielded  to  their 
purpose.  They  are  the  rapid,  decisive,  fearless,  and  often  des- 
perate rulers  of  inferior  minds  ;  not  the  calm  reasoners  or  pro- 
found contrivers  of  distant  schemes  of  aggrandizement,  seen 
through  a  long  series  of  concatenated  events  ;  events  which,  as 
they  well  know,  are  ever  liable  to  be  disturbed  by  the  ceaseless 
agitations  and  business  of  human  life,  and  the  unexpected  inter- 
ference of  occurrences,  which  it  may  be  their  fortune  indeed 
and  their  wisdom  to  seize  and  employ,  but  which  they  cannot 
possibly  produce  or  foresee. 

The  propagation  of  the  faith  of  Mahomet  by  his  generals 
and  friends,  the  conquest  of  Syria,  Persia,  Africa,  and  Spain, 
the  different  empires  of  the  caliphs,  and  all  that  is  important 
in  the  learning  of  their  subjects,  or  in  their  own  magnificence 
and  decline,  may  be  collected  from  Gibbon.  To  the  same 
mastrrly  author,  we  may  refer  for  the  impression  made  on 
Hindostan,  by  Mahomed  of  Gazna,  and  the  fluctuating  history 
and  final  success  of  the  Turks.  These  subjects,  striking  and 
important  in  their  main  events,  cannot  well  be  endured  in  all 
the  tame  and  minute  detail  of  the  writers  of  the  Modern 
History. 

The  very  curious  history  of  the  Saracens  given  by  Ockley 
should  be  consulted,  and  is  somewhat  necessary  to  enable  the 
student  more  exactly  to  comprehend  the  character  of  the 
Arabians,  which  is  there  displayed,  by  their  own  writers,  in  all 
its  singularities  ;  the  siege  of  Damascus,  for  instance,  may  be 
selected  ;  it  is  related  by  Ockley,  illuminated  by  Gibbon, 
dramatized  by  Hughes,  and  it  may,  therefore,  exercise  the 
philosophy,  the  taste,  and  the  imagination  of  a  discerning 
reader. 

The  empires  of  the  east  bowed  before  the  concentrated 
tribes  of  Arabia,  who  passed  over  them  with  all  the  force  and 
rapidity  of  a  whirlwind  ;  these  new  centaurs  it  was  equally 
impossible  to  face,  as  they  advanced,  or  pursue,  as  they  re- 
treated. It  is  true,  that  these  eastern  empires  were  at  the 


70  LECTURE  III. 

time  particularly  unfitted  to  sustain  any  powerful  attack  ;  but 
what  could  have  been  opposed  to  the  natives  of  the  desert, 
educated  in  the  most  tremendous  habits  of  privation  and 
activity,  and  in  habits,  still  more  tremendous,  of  fanaticism  and 
fury  ? 

To  give  one  instance  out  of  a  thousand  that  must  have  exist- 
ed. —  "  Repose  yourself,"  said  Derar,  u  you  are  fatigued  by 
fighting  with  this  dog."  —  "  He  that  labors  to-day,"  replied  Ca- 
led,  "shall  rest  in  the  world  to  come,  shall  rest  to-morrow." 
—  u  Great  God  !  "  said  Akbah,  as  he  spurred  his  horse  into 
the  Atlantic,  u  If  I  were  not  stopped  by  this  sea,  I  would  still 
go  on  and  put  to  the  sword  the  rebellious  nations  that  worship 
any  other  gods  than  thee."  —  "  God  is  victorious,"  said  AH 
four  hundred  times  in  a  nocturnal  combat,  as  each  time  he  cut 
down  an  infidel.  Such  were  the  generals. —  UI  see  the 
Houries  looking  upon  me,"  said  an  Arabian  youth  ;  "  and 
there  is  one  that  beckons  me,  and  calls  c  Come  hither  ; '  "  — 
and,  with  these  words,  he  charged  the  Christians  everywhere, 
making  havoc  till  he  was  struck  down  and  expired.  — u  Fight  !  " 
"  Paradise  !  "  "  God  is  victorious  ! "  —  these  were  the  shouts 
of  war.  Such  were  the  soldiers.  —  And  while  such  was  the 
army,  the  battle  might  be  bloody,  but  the  victory  was  certain. 

The  transmission  of  the  faith  of  Mahomet  pure  and  un- 
adulterated, the  same  faith  which  he  originally  delivered,  is 
no  doubt  remarkable  ;  and  the  absence  of  any  clerical  order 
among  the  Moslems,  and  the  union  of  the  regal  and  sacerdotal 
characters  in  the  commanders  of  the  faithful,  may  perhaps 
explain  this  striking  phenomenon.  But  the  continuance  of 
the  religion  at  all,  as  it  is  not  founded  in  truth,  is  deserving 
of  regard.  It  must  be  remembered,  that  it  gained  possession 
of  the  eastern  nations,  and  subsisted  several  centuries  under 
the  caliphs,  with  whose  power  it  was  identified.  It  was 
easily  propagated  among  the  wandering  conquerors  of  the 
east  ;  men  without  knowledge  and  without  reflection,  whose 
religious  creeds  were  readily  formed,  slightly  considered,  and 
loosely  held  ;  and  whose  military  and  arbitrary  government 
indisposed  and  disabled  them  from  all  exercise  of  their  reason 
in  the  search  of  truth.  The  Koran  must  also  be  considered 
as  not  only  a  religious,  but  a  civil  code.  To  alter,  therefore, 
the  religion  of  a  Mahometan,  is  to  alter  his  opinions,  habits, 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  71 

and  feelings,  to  give  him  a  new  character,  a  new  nature  :  add 
to  this,  that  the  intolerant  expressions  and  precepts  of  the 
Koran  have  been  so  improved  upon  by  the  followers  of  Ma- 
homet, that  the  great  characteristic  of  their  religion  is,  and 
has  been  long,  a  deadly  hostility  and  fixed  contempt  for  the 
professors  of  every  other  belief.  The  Koran,  therefore,  when 
once  established,  was  (humanly  speaking)  established  for  ever; 
and  it  has  now  for  eleven  centuries  occupied  the  faith  of  a  large 
but  unenlightened  portion  of  mankind. 

But  this  permanency  of  the  religion  and  institutions  of 
Mahomet  has  been  in  every  respect  a  misery  to  his  disciples 
and  a  misfortune  to  the  human  race.  It  might  have  been 
possible  for  Mahomet  to  have  moulded  the  simplicity  and 
independence  of  the  Arabians  into  some  form  of  government 
favorable  to  the  civil  liberty  of  his  followers  and  to  the 
improvement  of  their  character  and  happiness  ;  but  no 
speculations  of  this  kind  seem  ever  to  have  approached  his 
mind  ;  all  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power  was  united  in  his 
own  person,  and  he  left  them  without  further  reflection  to  be 
the  portion  of  his  successors.  The  result  has  been  fatal  to 
his  disciples  ;  their  caliphs  and  sultans  have  been  the  leaders 
of  fanatics,  or  the  now  arbitrary,  now  trembling,  rulers  of 
soldiers  and  janizaries  ;  but  they  have  never  enjoyed  the  far 
more  elevated  distinction  of  the  limited  monarchs  of  a  free 
people.  The  east  has,  therefore,  made  no  advance  ;  it  is  still 
left  in  a  state  of  inferiority  to  Europe,  and  it  has  derived  from 
Mahomet  no  accession  of  wisdom  or  vigor  to  regenerate  its 
inhabitants,  or  save  them  from  the  enterprise  and  plunder  of 
the  west.  In  vain  did  he  destroy  the  idols  of  his  countrymen 
and  sublime  their  faith  to  the  worship  of  the  one  true  God  ; 
in  vain  did  he  inculcate  compassion  to  the  distressed,  alms  to 
the  needy,  protection  and  tenderness  to  the  widow  and  the 
orphan.  He  neither  abolished  nor  discountenanced  polygamy, 
and  the  professors  of  his  faith  have  been  thus  left  the  domestic 
tyrants  of  one  half  of  their  own  race.  He  taught  predestination, 
and  they  have  thus  become,  by  their  crude  application  of  his 
doctrine,  the  victims  of  every  natural  disease  and  calamity. 
He  practised  intolerance,  and  they  are  thus  made  the  enemies 
of  the  civilized  world.  He  permitted  the  union  of  the  regal 
and  sacerdotal  offices,  and  he  made  the  book  of  his  religion 


73  LECTURE  III. 

and  legislation  the  same.  All  alteration,  therefore,  among  the 
Mahometans  must  have  been  thought  impiety  ;  lost  in  the  scale 
of  thinking  beings,  they  have  exhibited  families  without  society, 
subjects  without  freedom,  governments  without  security,  and 
nations  without  improvement.  For  centuries  they  have  contin- 
ued the  destroyers  of  others,  and  been  destroyed  themselves  ; 
the  ministers  and  the  victims  of  cruelty  and  death  ;  and,  even 
when  appearing  in  their  most  promising  form  of  an  established 
European  empire,  such  has  been  their  bigoted  attachment  to 
their  Koran,  that  they  have  been  contented  to  decline  and 
fall  with  the  progress  of  improvement  in  surrounding  nations, 
to  see  their  military  science  become  contemptible,  their 
strength  unwieldly,  their  courage  stagnate  without  hope  or  effort, 
and,  even  their  virtues  languish,  if  possible,  without  respect  or 
use. 

The  student  may  now  once  more  make  a  pause,  and  return 
to  consider  the  state  of  Europe  at  this  particular  period.  The 
nations  of  the  west  have  been  the  objects  of  his  attention, 
and  he  has  been  called  aside  to  observe  the  appearance  of  a 
great  revolution  that  had  taken  place  in  the  east  ;  and  sup- 
posing him  now  to  renew  his  speculations  with  respect  to  the 
happiness  of  mankind,  there  seems  little  to  afford  him  any 
pleasure  for  the  present,  or  any  hope  for  the  future.  This 
interference  of  the  followers  of  Mahomet  from  the  east  in  the 
affairs  of  Europe  can  only  give  the  prospect  a  new  and  addi- 
tional gloom  ;  their  religion  is  not  true,  their  civil  polity 
destructive  to  liberty.  Most  fortunately  they  have  indeed 
been  driven  back  by  Charles  Martel  and  the  Franks  ;  but 
they  may  ultimately  make  some  permanent  and  considerable 
settlement  in  the  western  world,  which  can  in  no  case  be 
favorable  to  its  interests. 

But  what,  in  the  mean  time,  has  been  the  fate  of  Europe 
itself?  The  student  will  recollect  the  hopes  with  which  we 
entered  on  its  history  at  the  accession  of  Clovis  :  the  Christian 
religion,  the  Roman  arts,  literature,  and  law,  might  have 
tempered  and  improved,  it  had  been  fondly  supposed,  the 
bold  independence  and  simple  virtues  of  the  barbarian  char- 
acter ;  and  the  result  might  have  been  that  mixture  of  free- 
dom and  restraint,  of  natural  reason  and  divine  illumination, 
which  gives  the  last  finish  and  perfection  to  the  dignity  and 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  73 

happiness  of  human  nature.  How  different,  how  melancholy, 
has  been  the  event  !  We  are  now  supposed  to  have  travelled 
through  five  centuries,  and  there  is  no  liberty,  no  knowledge, 
and  no  religion.  Instead  of  liberty,  there  has  grown  up  the 
feudal  system  ;  instead  of  knowledge,  darkness  has  overspread 
the  land,  and  thick  darkness  the  people  ;  and  instead  of  reli- 
gion, there  has  arisen  a  long  train  of  ceremonies  and  obser- 
vances ;  and  the  empire  of  the  priest,  in  the  odious  sense  of 
the  word,  has  been  established  over  the  conscience  and  the 
happiness  of  his  blind  and  unresisting  votaries. 

All  this  is  surely  mournful  to  behold,  yet  is  it  all  in  the 
natural  order  of  things  ;  the  speculation  that  hoped  otherwise^ 
was  inattentive  to  the  great  laws  of  human  nature.  A  state 
of  natural  liberty,  for  example,  implies  a  state  of  ignorance  ; 
and  the  result  of  both  cannot,  in  the  first  instance,  be  civil 
liberty.  Of  the  same  ignorance,  in  like  manner,  the  result 
cannot  be  religion  ;  the  result  can  only  be  superstition.  Re- 
ligion, even  if,  by  peculiar  interposition,  it  had  been  received 
pure,  would  soon  be  disfigured  and  corrupted,  and  become  a 
gross  and  comfortless  system  of  blind  devotion.  It  must  be 
ever  thus.  They  who  would  indispose  men  to  all  restraint, 
prepare  them,  not  for  civil  liberty,  but  for  mutual  violence  ; 
to  end  at  length  in  submission  to  some  military  leader,  or  in 
the  tyranny  of  a  few.  They,  in  like  manner,  who  would  keep 
men  in  ignorance,  the  better  to  incline  them  to  the  obser- 
vances of  religion,  prepare  them  for  superstition,  and  not  for 
the  reasonable  sacrifice  of  the  heart  ;  and  as  ignorance  in  the 
hearer  must  be  followed  by  ignorance  and  usurpation  in  the 
teacher,  the  priest  and  the  people  will  each  in  their  turn  con- 
tribute to  the  debasement  of  the  other. 

Abandoning,  therefore,  all  our  former  expectations  of  the 
happy  effects  that  were  on  a  sudden  to  arise  from  that  new 
mixture  of  civilized  and  uncivilized  life,  which  took  place  in 
Europe  on  the  conquest  and  settlement  of  the  northern  na- 
tions, we  must  now  be  only  anxious  to  observe  how  the  evils 
that  had  been  established  gradually  softened,  or  were  at  length 
counteracted,  by  attendant  causes  of  good  ;  how  the  clouds 
cleared  away  that  overhung  these  middle  ages  ;  how  the  inter- 
ests of  society  became  at  last  progressive,  lost  and  hopeless 
as  at  this  melancholy  period  they  certainly  appeared. 

VOL.   I.  10 


74  LECTURE  HI. 

The  great  evils  that  existed,  the  great  objects  of  attention, 
are  the  Feudal  System  and  the  Papal  Power.  As  we  read 
the  facts  of  history,  we  may  be  enabled  to  observe  the  more 
obvious  effects  of  these  two  great  calamities  by  which  man- 
kind were  oppressed  ;  but  we  must  carefully  recollect,  that  far 
more  was  suffered  than  history  can  possibly  express.  His- 
tory can  exhibit  an  emperor,  like  Henry  the  Fourth  of  Ger- 
many, barefooted  and  in  penance  for  three  winter  days  before 
the  palace  of  the  pope  ;  or  a  feudal  lord,  like  Earl  Warren, 
producing  his  sword  as  the  title-deeds  of  his  estate  ;  but  his- 
tory cannot  enter  into  the  recesses  of  private  life,  and  can  by 
no  means  delineate  what  was  daily  and  hourly  suffered  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  towns  or  country  from  the  unrestrained  and 
uncivilized  usurpation  of  the  feudal  lords,  from  the  u  oppres- 
sor's wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely."  Still  less  can 
history  describe  the  more  obscure  and  silent,  but  not  less 
dreadful,  effects  of  ecclesiastical  despotism  ;  the  hopeless  yet 
protracted  languor  of  some  mistaken  victim  of  credulity  in  the 
odious  cell  of  a  monastery  ;  or  all  that  was  suffered  by  the 
terrified  imagination  of  him,  who  had  incurred  the  censures  of 
the  church  or  the  overwhelming  evils  of  excommunication. 
Even  if  we  suppose  the  slave  no  longer  to  complain,  and  the 
monk  no  longer  to  feel,  still  that  destruction  of  the  faculties, 
that  debasement  of  the  nature,  which  is  so  complete  as  to  be 
unperceived  by  the  individual  himself,  is  on  that  very  account 
but  a  more  deserving  object  of  our  compassion  :  the  maniac 
who  dances  heedless  in  his  chains,  but  awakens  our  pity  the 
more. 

We  must  now,  therefore,  observe,  as  we  proceed  in  his- 
tory, that  whatever  advanced  the  authority  of  either  the  feudal 
system  or  the  papal  power,  was,  on  the  whole,  unfavorable  to 
the  interests  of  mankind  ;  whatever  has  a  contrary  tendency 
should  be  watched  and  examined  with  the  greatest  anxiety,  for 
it  is  the  only  hope  of  future  improvement. 

Now  it  often  happens  in  human  affairs,  that  the  evil  and 
the  remedy  grow  up  at  the  same  time  ;  the  remedy  unnoticed, 
and  at  a  distance,  scarce  visible,  perhaps,  above  the  earth  ; 
while  the  evil  may  shoot  rapidly  into  strength,  and  alone 
catch  the  eye  of  the  observer  by  the  immensity  of  its  shadow 
and  the  fulness  of  its  luxuriance.  The  eternal  law,  however, 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  75 

which  imposes  change  upon  all  things,  insensibly  produces 
its  effect,  and  a  subsequent  age  may  be  enabled  to  mark  how 
the  one  declined,  and  the  other  advanced  ;  how  the  life  and 
the  vigor  were  gradually  transferred  ;  and  how  returning 
spring  seemed  no  longer  to  renew  the  honors  of  the  one, 
while  it  summoned  into  progress  and  maturity  the  promise 
and  perfection  of  the  other.  No  more  useful  exercise  can  be 
offered  to  us,  than  to  trace,  if  possible,  the  opposite  succes- 
sions of  alterations  like  these.  As  we  read  modern  history, 
for  a  few  centuries,  from  the  success  of  the  northern  nations 
we  shall  be  doomed  to  observe  the  shades  of  tyranny,  tem- 
poral and  spiritual,  deepening  as  we  advance  ;  but  the  light 
will,  at  last,  begin  to  glimmer,  then  to  be  faintly  discernible, 
at  length  be  found  distinctly  to  approach  us,  and,  in  a  few 
centuries  more,  to  break  forth  from  the  clouds,  and  the  day 
appear. 

Witnessing,  as  we  ourselves  have  done,  what  the  mind  of 
man  is  capable  of  performing  in  literature  and  science  ;  seeing 
what  enjoyment  his  nature  is  fitted  to  receive  from  the  inter- 
course of  polished  and  social  life  ;  it  is  with  the  most  comfort- 
less sensations  that  we  survey  the  situation  of  mankind  at  this 
dark  period  of  their  history,  and  with  the  most  intolerable  im- 
patience, that  we  travel  through  the  long  and  at  last  but  too 
imperfect  struggle,  which  literature  and  science,  freedom  and 
religion,  had  to  maintain  with  ignorance,  slavery,  and  supersti- 
tion. This  interesting  subject  has  been,  in  part,  investigated 
by  Dr.  Robertson,  one  of  those  few  writers  who  can  furnish 
himself  with  the  learning  of  an  antiquary,  and  then  exhibit  it 
in  a  form  and  in  a  compass  that  admits  of  a  perusal  even  amid 
the  business  and  amusements  of  modern  life.  Never  advancing 
in  his  text  more  than  is  necessary,  his  proofs  and  illustrations 
are  not  doubtful  and  imperfect,  such  as  the  reader  understands 
with  difficulty,  and  assents  to  with  hesitation,  but  concise  and 
satisfactory  ;  all  appears  reasonable,  unembarrassed,  and  com- 
plete ;  the  diligence  of  a  scholar,  with  the  good  sense  of  a  man 
of  business  and  of  the  world.  The  dissertation  prefixed  to  his 
Charles  the  Fifth  deserves  the  study  of,  and  is  accessible  to, 
almost  every  reader. 

If  there  be  any  (and  some  there  may)  who  are  repulsed  by 
what  is  called,  in  familiar  language,  the  dryness  of  the  sub- 


76  LECTURE  III. 

ject,  they  may  suspend  this  inquiry  for  a  season,  and  repeat 
the  experiment  hereafter.  The  studies  of  men  alter  as  they 
advance  in  life  ;  alter  rapidly  ;  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  not 
those  of  a  maturer  period  ;  time,  that  improves  us  not  in 
many  respects,  improves  us  materially  in  some  ;  by  mitigating 
the  rage  for  the  more  selfish  and  violent  pleasures,  it  renders 
the  mind  accessible  to  more  calm  and  dignified  anxieties  ; 
and  many  a  man,  who,  in  all  the  insolence  of  youthful  hope, 
and  health,  and  gayety,  had  thought  of  little  but  himself, 
may,  in  a  few  years,  think  of  others  and  of  mankind,  and 
pursue,  with  due  interest,  the  fortunes  of  his  species  through 
the  pages  of  Robertson  or  of  Stuart,  of  Smith,  of  Montes- 
quieu, or  of  Hume.  From  Robertson,  a  very  full  and  distinct 
idea  may  be  formed  of  the  unhappy  effects  which  the  feudal 
system  produced  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  the 
country,  and  particularly  of  the  extent  and  violence  to  which 
the  practice  of  private  war  was  carried  by  the  greater  and 
lesser  barons,  the  unhappy  influence  of  so  disordered  a  state 
of  society  on  science  and  the  arts,  on  knowledge  and  religion, 
on  the  characters  and  virtues  of  the  human  mind.  He  will 
then  see  delineated  the  salutary  effect  which  the  Crusades 
had  on  the  manners,  and  the  state  of  property  ;  and  he  will 
see  noticed  also  their  commercial  effect.  The  next  cause  of 
improvement,  which  the  historian  points  out,  is  the  rise  and 
establishment  of  free  cities,  communities,  and  corporations  ; 
and  he  shows  the  happy  alteration  which  they  effected  in  the 
condition  of  the  people,  in  the  power  of  the  nobility,  in  the 
power  of  the  crown,  and  the  general  industry  of  the  com- 
munity ;  how  this  effect  was  still  increased,  as  the  inhab- 
itants of  cities  became  gradually  possessed  of  political  au- 
thority ;  how  it  was  still  more  widely  extended  with  the 
extension  of  commerce,  and  with  the  science  which  was  caught 
from  the  Greeks  and  Arabians  ;  how  men  were  softened  and 
refined  by  chivalry  ;  and  how  the  administration  of  justice 
was  made  more  regular,  and  society  rendered  capable  of  still 
further  improvement,  by  the  gradual  abolition  of  private  war 
and  the  judicial  combat,  by  the  introduction  of  appeals  from 
the  courts  of  the  barons,  and  by  the  introduction  of  the  canon 
and  Roman  law. 

After   Robertson,  the  work    of    Gilbert    Stuart  should  be 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  77 

diligently  searched.  And  here,  for  the  first  time,  the  reader 
will  meet  with  observations  injurious  to  the  fame  and  authority 
of  Dr.  Robertson  ;  yet  that  fame  and  authority  are,  on  the 
whole,  rather  confirmed  than  weakened  by  the  animadversions 
of  Stuart ;  for,  with  great  ability  and  learning,  and  with  great 
eagerness  to  find  fault,  his  objections  are,  after  all,  but  few, 
and  of  no  decisive  importance.  He  detracts  not  (he  says) 
from  the  diligence  of  Dr.  Robertson,  whose  laboriousness  is 
acknowledged  ;  and  his  remark,  or  accusation  rather,  is,  "  that 
the  Doctor's  total  abstinence  from  all  ideas  and  inventions  of 
his  own  permitted  him  to  carry  an  undivided  attention  to 
other  men's  thoughts  and  speculations."  Dr.  Stuart  forgets, 
that  to  take  an  extensive  view,  and  to  form  a  rational  estimate 
of  the  facts  and  opinions  before  him,  is  a  considerable  part,  if 
not  the  whole,  of  the  merit  that  can  be  required  in  an  his- 
torian ;  that  an  historian,  though  he  may  be  more,  should  in 
the  first  place  be  a  guide,  and  that  men  of  invention  and 
speculation  are  of  all  guides  the  least  to  be  trusted.  Two- 
thirds  of  Stuart's  work  consists  of  notes  ;  and  this,  I  must 
observe,  is  the  only  way  in  which  any  estimate  can  be  given 
of  the  situation  of  society  at  any  particular  period.  Nothing 
should  be  laid  down  in  a  text  that  cannot  be  directly  proved 
or  fairly  implied  from  some  original  document  referred  to,  or 
quoted  in  the  notes.  Views  of  society  are,  otherwise,  views 
only  of  an  author's  own  ingenuity  and  sentiments  ;  and  who- 
ever consults  the  authorities,  to  which  our  most  established 
writers  appeal,  will  not  always  find  their  representations  justi- 
fied, especially  when  these  historians  have,  what  Dr.  Stuart 
so  much  admires,  ideas  and  notions  of  their  own.  Historians, 
also,  are  far  too  apt  to  copy  each  other.  The  student  should 
therefore  consult,  in  several  instances,  the  references  of  a 
writer  ;  and  he  can  then  form  an  opinion  to  what  confidence 
he  is  entitled.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that  the  vigilance  of  an 
author  should  not  sometimes  relax,  or  his  discernment  be 
sometimes  clouded. 

From  the  work  of  Dr.  Stuart  the  student  will  derive  infor- 
mation respecting  the  rise  of  chivalry  and  of  the  feudal  system  ; 
the  different  characters  which  belonged  to  these  institutions 
at  two  different  periods  ;  what  he  esteems  their  original  gran- 
deur and  virtue,  and  what  every  one  must  esteem  their  subse- 


78  LECTURE  III. 

quent  debasement  and  corruption,  and  he  concludes  with  re- 
marking upon  the  alterations  that  followed  in  the  military 
system  and  in  the  manners  of  society.  The  mind  of  the  au- 
thor is  no  doubt  vigorous,  and  his  learning  great  :  we  see, 
too,  in  his  representation  of  the  favorable  periods  of  chivalry 
and  the  feudal  system,  strong  marks  of  that  eloquence,  which 
was  displayed  in  the  defence  of  the  unfortunate  Mary. 

The  view  which  Dr.  Robertson  has  taken  of  the  progress 
of  society  is  marked,  according  to  Stuart,  by  a  variety  of 
omissions.  I  shall  venture,  however,  to  propose  once  more 
to  the  consideration  of  my  hearer  the  still  more  contracted 
estimate  of  this  great  subject,  which  I  have  already  mention- 
ed. The  leading  and  important  evils  of  mankind,  I  must  still 
contend,  became  at  last  the  feudal  system  and  the  papal  power  ; 
the  attention,  therefore,  may  be  fixed,  as  I  conceive,  chiefly 
on  these.  Whatever  had  a  tendency  to  break  up  and  dissi- 
pate the  power  so  collected  was  favorable  to  the  interests  of 
mankind,  and  the  contrary  :  all  healthful  motion  and  activity 
were,  by  these  two  great  causes  of  evil,  excluded  from  socie- 
ty :  military  exercises  and  church  ceremonies  were  the  only 
result ;  and  whatever  withdrew  the  human  mind  into  any  new 
direction,  could  not  fail  to  assist  the  progress  of  general  im- 
provement. I  will  say  a  word,  and  but  a  word,  on  each. 

With  respect  then,  first,  to  the  feudal  power.  This  feudal 
power  lay  in  the  great  lords,  and  in  the  king,  as  the  greatest 
of  those  lords.  In  England  the  situation  of  things  was  not 
exactly  the  same  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  from  the  greater 
influence  of  the  crown  :  but  in  general  it  may  be  said,  that 
whatever  shook  and  scattered  the  power  of  the  great  barons 
was  favorable  to  civil  liberty  ;  even  if  the  power  was,  in  the 
event,  to  be  transferred  entirely  to  the  king  ;  it  was  less  inju- 
rious thus  single,  than  when  multiplied  among  the  lords  ;  and 
there  was  always  a  probability,  that,  in  the  course  of  the  strug- 
gle, the  commons  might  come  in  for  a  part,  if  not  the  whole, 
of  the  share  that  belonged  to  them. 

The  great  cause,  then,  of  the  improvement  of  society  dur- 
ing these  centuries  was  the  rise  and  progress  of  Commerce. 
For  the  great  point  to  be  attained  was  the  elevation  of  the 
lower  orders. 


FEUDAL  SYSTEM.  79 

Both  the  crown  and  the  barons  were  sufficiently  ready 
each  of  them  to  employ  the  lower  orders  against  the  other. 
Consequence  was  therefore  given  to  this  oppressed  race  of 
men,  and  immunities  and  privileges  afforded  to  them,  more 
particularly  in  the  towns  and  cities.  The  result  was  com- 
merce, which  again  added  to  the  consequence  they  had  before 
acquired. 

As  the  towns  and  cities  were  on  various  accounts  materially 
leagued  with  the  crown,  the  power  of  the  barons  was  thus  on 
the  whole  assaulted  from  without. 

But  it  was  also  attacked  and  wasted  from  within.  A  taste 
was  gradually  introduced  for  the  more  elegant  and  expensive 
enjoyments  of  life,  and  the  barons  could  not  spend  their 
revenues  on  themselves,  and  at  the  same  time  on  their  re- 
tainers, —  at  once  on  articles  of  luxury,  and  in  rude  hospitality. 
The  number  of  their  retainers  was  therefore  diminished  ;  that 
is,  their  power  and  political  importance.  The  whole  subject 
has  been  admirably  explained  by  Smith  in  his  third  book  of 
the  Wealth  of  Nations,  and  I  depend  on  your  reading  it ; 
leaving  here  a  blank  in  my  lectures,  which  you  must  yourselves 
fill  up  It  would  be  an  improper  use  of  your  time  to  offer  you 
here,  in  an  imperfect  manner,  what  can  be  afforded  you,  and 
far  better  afforded  you,  by  the  study  of  this  very  masterly  part 
of  his  celebrated  work. 

A  great  part  of  Smith's  reasonings  had  appeared  in  the 
history  of  Hume.  These  two  eminent  philosophers  (for  on 
the  subjects  of  political  economy  and  morals  they  deserve  the 
name)  had,  no  doubt,  in  their  mutual  intercourse,  enlightened 
and  confirmed  the  inquiries  and  conclusions  of  each  other. 

The  Crusades  are  considered  by  authors  in  general,  and  by 
Dr.  Robertson,  as  a  powerful  cause  of  the  improvement  of 
society.  You  will  see  his  reasons  ;  and  you  will  observe  that 
Smith  conceives,  that,  from  the  great  waste  and  destruction  of 
people  and  of  capital,  they  must  rather  have  retarded  the  pro- 
gress of  the  greater  part  of  Europe,  though  favorable  to  some 
Italian  cities. 

You  will  perceive,  also,  that  Gibbon  agrees  with  Smith. 

But  the  question  is,  whether  the  stock  and  population  thus 
transported  to  Palestine,  would  have  been  turned  to  any  proper 
purposes  of  accumulation  or  improvement,  if  left  to  remain 


80  LECTURE  III. 

at  home.  At  the  close  of  his  remarks  on  this  subject,  Mr. 
Gibbon  appears  to  me  to  have  determined  this  question,  not 
a  little  against  himself,  by  a  very  beautiful  illustration,  which 
he  offers  to  his  reader,  after  the  manner  of  the  great  orator 
of  antiquity  ;  an  illustration  which  at  once  conveys  an  image 
to  the  fancy  and  an  argument  to  the  understanding.  "*  The 
conflagration,"  says  he,  u  which  destroyed  the  tall  and  barren 
trees  of  the  forest  gave  air  and  scope  to  the  vegetation  of  the 
nutritive  plants  of  the  soil  ;  "  that  is,  the  Crusades  destroyed 
the  feudal  lords,  and  brought  forward  the  middle  and  lower 
orders. 

Another  cause  of  the  improvement  of  society  was  the  for- 
tune, whatever  it  might  be,  by  which  the  crown  became,  in 
the  great  kingdoms  of  Europe,  hereditary. 

The  royal  power  was  thus  rendered  always  ready  to  gain 
whatever  could  be  lost  ;  to  proceed  from  one  accession  to  an- 
other ;  and  to  be  the  great  and  permanent  reservoir  into  which 
the  feudal  authority  had  constantly  a  tendency  to  flow. 

I  have  before  observed,  that  the  power  was  less  injurious, 
thus  collected,  than  when  indefinitely  multiplied  and  exhibited 
in  the  person  of  any  baron  ;  and  that  there  w7as  a  probability 
that  the  Commons  would  receive  their  share  in  the  course  of 
the  transfer. 

With  respect  to  the  causes  which  shook  the  ecclesiastical 
power  of  Rome,  the  second  great  evil  of  society,  they  may  be 
comprised  in  two  words,  that  at  this  period  of  the  world  were 
of  kindred  nature,  - —  Heresy  and  Knowledge. 

The  gradual  progress  of  these  causes,  and  their  final  suc- 
cess, may  be  hereafter  considered.  The  student  may,  how- 
ever, look  upon  either  of  them  whenever  it  appears  in  the  his- 
tory of  these  times,  as  the  symptom  and  harbinger  of  the  sub- 
sequent reformation. 

Ignorance  and  superstition  are  naturally  allied  ;  their  cause 
is  common,  their  friends  and  enemies  the  same.  The  op- 
posers  of  a  barbarous  philosophy  are  soon  entangled  in  the 
misapprehensions  and  corruptions  of  an  abused  religion  ;  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  which  struggles  with  the  one  is  immediately 
suspected  of  a  secret  hostility  to  the  other.  The  student,  as 
he  proceeds  in  his  historical  course,  will  soon  be  called  on  to 
observe  the  Albigenses,  the  Lollards,  and  the  Hussites,  with 


FEUDAL  SYSTEM.  81 

our  earlier  sages  and  philosophers,  exhibiting,  amid  the  chains 
and  dungeons  of  the  inquisition  or  of  the  civil  power,  the  mel- 
ancholy grandeur  of  persecuted  truth,  and  insulted  genius. 

These  first  but  unfortunate  luminaries  of  Europe  were, 
however,  not  lost  to  the  world  :  the  Reformation  and  the  re- 
vival of  learning  at  last  took  place  ;  the  pillar  of  light  continued 
to  march  before  mankind  in  their  journey  through  the  darkness 
of  the  desert,  and  it  was  in  vain  that  the  oppressor  would  have 
prevented  their  escape  from  their  houses  of  bondage,  or  denied 
them  the  possession  of  the  promised  land  of  religion,  liberty, 
and  knowledge. 

I  conclude  this  general  subject  with  observing,  that  the 
Crusades,  while  they  so  happily  dispersed  the  possessions 
and  influence  of  the  great  lords,  and  therefore  so  materially 
assisted  the  progress  of  society,  contributed  to  the  influence 
of  the  clergy,  and  that  in  the  most  unfavorable  manner,  by 
furnishing  them  with  relics  and  miracles,  and  with  new  and 
multiplied  modes  of  extending  and  confirming  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  age  ;  but  I  must  at  the  same  time  remark,  once  for 
all,  that  the  power,  which  the  clergy  enjoyed,  was  not  always 
exercised  to  the  injury  of  society  ;  in  many  most  important 
respects  materially  otherwise.  They  shook  the  power  of  the 
barons  by  contriving  to  draw  within  their  own  jurisdiction  the 
disputes  and  causes  which  had  belonged  to  the  feudal  courts, 
—  they  had  always  kept  alive  in  society  whatever  knowledge, 
amid  such  rapine  and  disorder,  could  be  suffered  to  exist,  — 
they  were  the  instructors  of  youth,  —  they  were  the  historians 
of  the  times,  —  they  maintained  in  existence  the  Latin  lan- 
guage,—they  were  the  only  preservers  of  the  remains  of  Greek 
and  Roman  literature,  —  they  everywhere  endeavoured  to  miti- 
gate and  abolish  slavery,  —  they  were  the  most  favorable 
landlords  to  the  peasantry  ;  to  the  lower  orders  the  mildest 
masters,  —  they  labored  most  anxiously  and  constantly  to 
soften  and  abolish  the  system  of  private  war  by  establishing 
truces  and  intermissions,  and  by  assisting  the  civil  magistrate 
on  every  possible  occasion,  —  they  were  everywhere  in  those 
times  of  violence,  a  description  of  men  whose  habits  and 
manners  were  those  of  peace  and  order,  —  they  could  not 
profess  such  a  religion  as  Christianity  without  dispensing, 
amidst  all  their  misrepresentations,  the  general  doctrines  of 

VOL.    I.  11 


82  LECTURE  III, 

purity  and  benevolence,  and  without  being,  in  a  word,  the 
representatives  of  what  learning  and  civilization,  moderation 
and  mercy,  were  yet  to  be  found.  These  were  great  and 
transcendent  merits. 

That  their  power  was  inordinate,  and  that  they  abused  it 
most  grossly,  is  but  too  true  :  a  strong  proof,  if  any  were 
wanting,  that  power  should  be  always  suspected,  and  should 
be  checked  and  divided  by  every  possible  contrivance.  In 
this  instance  it  was  capable  of  converting  into  the  rulers,  and 
often  into  the  tyrants,  of  the  earth,  men  who  breathed  the  pre- 
cepts of  meekness  and  lowliness  of  heart,  and  who  continually 
affirmed  that  their  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world. 

Such  are  the  general  views  which  I  have  been  enabled  to 
form  of  the  situation  and  prospects  of  society  during  these 
middle  ages,  and  such  are  the  writers  on  whom  I  have  de- 
pended for  instruction,  and  to  whose  labors  I  must  now  finally 
refer  you. 

But  before  I  conclude  my  lecture,  I  must  make  a  particular 
remark.  It  cannot  have  escaped  your  observation  how  often 
I  have  mentioned  the  historian  Gibbon  ;  how  much  I  leave 
entirely  to  depend  upon  him  ;  the  manner  in  which  I  refer  to 
him  as  the  fittest  writer  to  supply  you  with  information  in  all 
the  earlier  stages  of  modern  history,  and,  indeed,  as  the  only 
writer  that  you  are  likely  to  undertake  to  read  ;  add  to  this, 
that  I  have  already  had  occasion,  and  shall  often  hereafter  have 
occasion,  to  mention  his  history  in  terms  either  of  admiration 
or  respect. 

Yet  I  cannot  be  supposed  ignorant  of  the  very  material 
objections  which  exist  to  this  History  ;  and  I  am  certainly  not 
at  ease  in  recommending  those  parts  of  the  work  which  I  do 
approve,  while  I  know  there  is  so  much,  both  in  the  matter 
and  manner  of  the  whole,  and  of  every  part  of  it,  which  I 
cannot  approve. 

I  am,  therefore,  necessitated  to  make  some  observations  on 
this  celebrated  writer,  unfavorable  as  well  as  favorable,  and 
this  I  must  do  with  a  minuteness  disproportionate  to  all  unity 
and  keeping  in  the  composition  of  general  lectures  like  these. 
I  am  compelled  to  do  so,  by  the  nature  of  the  audience  I  am 
addressing,  and  by  the  fame  of  the  author. 

In  the  chapters  which  I  in  the  first  lecture  referred  to,  the 


GIBBON.  83 

faults  of  this  great  historian  do  not  appear.  In  the  earlier 
part  of  his  work  he  respected  the  public,  and  was  more  diffi- 
dent of  himself.  Success  produced  its  usual  effects  ;  his 
peculiar  faults  were  more  and  more  visible  as  his  work  ad- 
vanced, and,  in  his  later  volumes,  he  seems  to  take  a  pride,  as 
is  too  commonly  the  case  among  men  of  genius,  in  indulging 
himself  in  liberties  which  he  would  certainly  have  denied  to 
others.  And  as  the  powers  of  the  writer  strengthened,  as  he 
went  on,  and  kept  pace  with  his  disposition  to  abuse  them,  the 
History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  became,  at  last,  a  work  so 
singularly  constituted,  that  the  objections  to  it  are  too  obvious 
to  escape  the  most  ordinary  observer,  while  its  merits  are  too 
extensive  and  profound  to  be  fully  ascertained  by  the  most 
learned  of  its  admirers. 

These  faults  will  only  be  the  more  deeply  lamented  by 
those,  who  can  best  appreciate  such  extraordinary  merits. 
Men  of  genius  are  fitted,  by  their  nature,  not  only  to  instruct 
the  understanding,  but  to  fill  the  imagination  and  interest  the 
heart.  It  is  mournful  to  see  the  defects  of  their  greatness  ; 
it  is  painful  to  be  checked  in  the  generous  career  of  our 
applause.  With  what  surprise  and  disgust  are  we  to  see  in 
such  a  writer  as  Gibbon  the  most  vulgar  relish  for  obscenity  ! 
With  what  pain  are  we  to  find  him  exercising  his  raillery  and 
sarcasm  on  such  a  subject  as  Christianity  J  How  dearly  shall 
we  purchase  the  pleasure  and  instruction  to  be  derived  from 
his  work,  if  modesty  is  to  be  sneered  away  from  our  minds, 
and  piety  from  our  feelings  !  There  seems  no  excuse  for  this 
celebrated  writer  on  these  two  important  points  ;  he  must 
have  known,  that  some  of  the  best  interests  of  society  are 
connected  with  the  respectability  of  the  female  character  ; 
and  with  regard  to  his  chapters  on  the  progress  of  Christi- 
anity, and  the  various  passages  of  attack  with  which  his  work 
abounds,  it  is  in  vain  to  say,  that,  as  a  lover  of  truth,  he  was 
called  upon  to  oppose  those  opinions,  which  he  deemed  erro- 
neous ;  for  he  was  concerned,  as  an  historian,  only  with  the 
effects  of  this  religion,  and  not  with  its  evidences  ;  with  its  in- 
fluence on  the  affairs  of  the  world,  not  with  its  truth  or  false- 
hood. 

It  would  be  to  imitate  the  fault,  to  which  I  object,  were  I 
now  to  travel  out  of  my  appointed  path,  and  attempt  to 


84  LECTUKE  III. 

comment  upon  these  parts  of  his  work.  But  as  they,  who 
hear  me,  are  at  a  season  of  life,  when  liveliness  and  sarcasm 
have  but  too  powerful  a  charm,  more  particularly  if  employed 
upon  subjects  that  are  serious,  it  may  not  be  improper  to 
remind  them,  how  often  it  has  been  stated,  and  justly  stated, 
that  questions  of  this  nature  are  to  be  approached  neither  by 
liveliness  nor  by  sarcasm,  but  by  calm  reasoning  and  regular 
investigation  ;  and  that,  to  subject  them  to  any  other  criterion, 
to  expose  them  to  any  other  influence,  is  to  depart  from  the 
only  mode  we  possess  of  discovering  truth  on  any  occasion  ; 
but  more  especially  on  those  points,  which  youth,  as  well  as 
age,  will  soon  discover  to  be  of  the  most  immeasurable  impor- 
tance. 

If  we  pass  from  the  matter  to  the  manner  of  this  celebrated 
work,  how  are  we  not  to  be  surprised,  when  we  find  a  writer, 
who  has  meditated  the  finest  specimens  of  ancient  and  modern 
literature,  forgetting  the  first  and  most  obvious  requisite  of  the 
composition  he  is  engaged  in,  —  simplicity  of  narrative.  In  the 
history  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  facts  are  often  insinuated,  rather  than 
detailed  ;  the  story  is  alluded  to,  rather  than  told  ;  a  commen- 
tary on  the  history  is  given,  rather  than  the  history  itself;  many 
paragraphs,  and  some  portions  of  the  work,  are  scarcely  in- 
telligible without  that  previous  knowledge,  which  it  was  the 
proper  business  of  the  historian  himself  to  have  furnished. 
The  information,  which  is  afforded,  is  generally  conveyed  by 
abstract  estimates  ;  a  mode  of  writing  which  is  never  com- 
prehended without  an  effort  of  the  mind  more  or  less  pain- 
ful ;  and  when  this  exertion  is  so  continually  to  be  renewed, 
it  soon  ceases  to  be  made.  The  reader  sees,  without  instruc- 
tion, sentence  succeed  to  sentence,  in  appearance  little  con- 
nected with  each  other  ;  cloud  rolls  on  after  cloud  in  majesty 
and  darkness  ;  and  at  last  retires  from  the  work,  to  seek  relief 
in  the  chaster  composition  of  Robertson,  or  the  unambitious 
beauties  of  Hume. 

On  this  account,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  apprize  the 
student  of  what  it  might,  at  first,  seem  somewhat  strange  to 
mention,  that  he  will  not  receive  all  the  benefit,  which  he 
might  otherwise  derive  from  the  labors  of  this  great  writer, 
unless  he  reads  but  little  of  his  work  at  the  same  time.  It 
is  not  that  his  paragraphs,  though  full  and  sounding,  signify 


GIBBON.  85 

nothing  ;  but  that  they  comprehend  too  much  ;  and  the  reader 
must  have  his  faculties,  at  every  instant,  fresh  and  effective, 
or  he  will  not  possess  himself  of  the  treasures,  which  are  con- 
cealed, rather  than  displayed,  in  a  style  so  sententious  and 
elaborate.  The  perversity  of  genius  is  proverbial  ;  but  surely 
it  has  been  seldom  more  unfortunately  exercised  than  in  cor- 
rupting and  disfiguring  so  magnificent  a  work. 

For  the  moment  we  reverse  the  picture  ;  the  merits  of  the 
historian  are  as  striking  as  his  faults. 

If  his  work  be  not  always  history,  it  is  often  something 
more  than  history,  and  above  it  :  it  is  philosophy,  it  is  theol- 
ogy, it  is  wit  and  eloquence,  it  is  criticism  the  most  masterly 
upon  every  subject  with  which  literature  can  be  connected. 
If  the  style  be  so  constantly  elevated  as  to  be  often  obscure, 
to  be  often  monotonous,  to  be  sometimes  even  ludicrously 
disproportioned  to  the  subject ;  it  must,  at  the  same  time,  be 
allowed,  that,  whenever  an  opportunity  presents  itself,  it  is  the 
striking  and  adequate  representative  of  comprehensive  thought 
and  weighty  remark. 

It  may  be  necessary,  no  doubt,  to  warn  the  student  against 
the  imitation  of  a  mode  of  writing  so  little  easy  and  natural. 
But  the  very  necessity  of  the  caution  implies  the  attraction 
that  is  to  be  resisted  :  and  it  must  be  confessed,  that  the 
chapters  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  are  replete  with  paragraphs 
of  such  melody  and  grandeur,  as  would  be  the  fittest  to  con- 
vey to  a  youth  of  genius  the  full  charm  of  literary  composition, 
and  such  as,  when  once  heard,  however  unattainable  to  the 
immaturity  of  his  own  mind,  he  would  alone  consent  to  admire, 
or  sigh  to  emulate. 

History  is  always  a  work  of  difficulty,  but  the  difficulties, 
with  which  Mr.  Gibbon  had  to  struggle,  were  of  more  than 
ordinary  magnitude.  Truth  was  to  be  discovered,  and  reason 
was  to  be  exercised,  upon  times  where  truth  was  little  valued 
and  reason  but  little  concerned.  The  materials  of  history 
were  often  to  be  collected  from  the  synods  of  prelates,  the 
debates  of  polemics,  the  relations  of  monks,  and  the  panegyr- 
ics of  poets.  Hints  were  to  be  caught,  a  narrative  was  to  be 
gathered  up,  from  documents  broken  and  suspicious,  from 
every  barbarous  relic  of  a  barbarous  age  :  and,  on  the  whole, 
the  historian  was  to  be  left  to  the  most  unceasing  and  unex- 


86  LECTURE  III. 

ampled  exercise  of  criticism,  comparison,  and  conjecture. 
Yet  all  this,  and  more  than  all  this,  has  been  accomplished. 

The  public  have  been  made  acquainted  with  periods  of  his- 
tory which  were  before  scarcely  accessible  to  the  most  patient 
scholars.  Order  and  interest  and  importance  have  been  given 
to  what  appeared  to  defy  every  power  of  perspicacity  and 
genius.  Even  the  fleeting  shadows  of  polemical  divinity  have 
been  arrested,  embodied,  and  adorned  :  and  the  same  pages, 
which  instruct  the  theologian,  might  add  a  polish  to  the  liveli- 
ness of  the  man  of  wit,  and  imagery  to  the  fancy  of  the  poet. 

The  vast  and  obscure  regions  of  the  middle  ages  have  been 
penetrated  and  disclosed  ;  and  the  narrative  of  the  historian, 
while  it  descends,  like  the  Nile,  through  lengthened  tracts  of 
present  sterility  and  ancient  renown,  pours,  like  the  Nile,  the 
exuberance  of  its  affluence  on  every  object  which  it  can  touch, 
and  gives  fertility  to  the  rock  and  verdure  to  the  desert. 

When  such  is  the  work,  it  is  placed  beyond  the  justice  or 
the  injustice  of  criticism  ;  the  Christian  may  have  but  too 
often  very  just  reason  to  complain,  the  moralist  to  reprove,  the 
man  of  taste  to  censure,  even  the  historical  inquirer  may  be 
fatigued  and  irritated  by  the  unseasonable  and  obscure  splen- 
dor, through  which  he  is  to  discover  the  objects  of  his  research. 
But  the  whole  is,  notwithstanding,  such  an  assemblage  of 
merits  so  various,  so  interesting,  and  so  rare,  that  the  History 
of  the  Decline  and  Fall  must  always  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  monuments,  that  has  appeared,  of  the 
literary  powers  of  a  single  mind  ;  and  its  fame  can  only  perish 
with  the  civilization  of  the  world. 


LECTURE    IV. 

THE  DARK  AGES. 

I  HAVE  made  a  certain  progress  in  the  consideration  of  the 
earlier  and  more  perplexing  portions  of  modern  history. 

I  have,  as  I  hope,  introduced  to  your  curiosity  the  general 
subjects,  that  belong  to  it,  and  I  have  mentioned  to  you  the 
writers,  who  have  so  successfully  displayed  the  philosophy  of 
history,  while  considering  these  particular  times,  —  Hume, 
Robertson,  and  Smith  ;  Stuart,  Gibbon,  and  the  Abbe  de 
Mably. 

But,  while  you  are  forming  general  views  and  studying  these 
writers,  you  must  acquire,  by  some  means  or  other,  a  proper 
knowledge  of  those  very  facts  and  those  very  details  of  history, 
which  have  been  present  to  the  minds  of  these  distinguished 
reasoners,  while  they  were  deducing  their  conclusions  and  form- 
ing their  statements. 

In  other  words,  you  must  acquire  some  proper  knowledge  of 
the  French  and  German  histories  ;  and  these  histories  are,  for 
a  long  time,  very  tedious  and  repulsive.  The  original  docu- 
ments, from  which  the  facts  of  the  early  part  of  the  French 
history  are  to  be  collected,  will  be  found  in  a  great  work  of  the 
Benedictines,  in  eleven  folio  volumes,  u  Recueil  des  Histori- 
ens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France."  This  great  work  is  seldom 
to  be  met  with  in  England  ;  it  is  in  Albemarle  Street,  at  the 
Royal  Institution. 

But  there  is  a  work  of  a  similar  nature,  by  Duchesne,  which 
you  will  find  in  all  great  libraries  (in  our  own),  and  in  which  the 
original  historians  of  France  are  collected.  Gregory  of  Tours 
is  the  author  most  referred  to,  and  parts  of  his  work  may  be 
consulted  to  acquire  an  idea  of  the  whole  :  his  defects  and  faults 
are  obvious. 


88  LECTURE  IV. 

There  has  been  lately  published,  by  Dr.  Rankin,  a  work 
containing  a  history  of  France  through  these  earlier  ages.  It  is 
not  executed  with  any  very  particular  judgment,  or  any  constant 
accuracy  ;  yet,  as  the  author's  reading  is  very  extensive,  and 
as  the  work  is  never  tedious,  and  particularly  as  it  contains  a 
variety  of  information,  not  to  be  acquired  without  intolerable 
labor,  the  student  may  consult  it  with  material  advantage,  and 
with  considerable  amusement. 

It  is  to  this  work,  therefore,  I  refer  those  who  would  study 
these  early  facts  of  the  French  history. 

At  the  same  time,  I  must  finally  refer  you  to  the  Abridgment 
of  Renault,  where  the  facts  are  well  selected  and  arranged,  and 
accompanied  with  valuable  observations. 

There  is  a  still  better  work,  by  Millot,  on  the  French  histo- 
ry, which  might  be  consulted  for  the  same  purpose. 

And,  lastly,  there  has  been  lately  published  a  work  by 
D'Anquetil,  on  the  French  history,  in  fourteen,  or  rather  thir- 
teen, octavo  volumes. 

D'Anquetil  is  a  writer  of  great  reputation,  and  undertook 
the  work  at  the  recommendation  of  Bonaparte,  who  very 
sensibly  desired  him  to  draw  up  a  History  of  France,  which 
could  be  read  ;  disencumbered  of  those  details  which  make 
the  volumes  of  the  French  historians  so  repulsive  and  fa- 
tiguing. 

Along  with  the  French  history,  the  work  of  Pfeffel  must  be 
looked  at  for  the  German  history.  Though  every  possible  ef- 
fort is  made,  by  this  celebrated  writer,  to  render  the  early  parts 
of  his  work  as  concise  as  possible,  it  is  still  a  very  disagreeable 
task  to  read  through  the  particular  history  of  those  times  ;  and 
readers  will,  in  general,  be  content  to  catch  up  some  of  the  par- 
ticulars, that  are  descriptive  of  the  scene  in  a  passing  manner, 
and  to  confine  their  regular  reading  to  the  author's  remarks  on 
each  particular  period,  which  are  given  in  a  collected  and  sum- 
mary way,  at  the  end  of  each  period,  and  are  drawn  up  with 
great  skill  and  perspicuity. 

I  would  recommend  to  the  reader  to  proceed  beyond  the 
period  of  the  Saxon  dynasty,  which  answers  to  the  accession 
of  Hugh  Capet  in  the  French  history,  and  to  labor,  in  some 
way  or  other,  through  the  other  two  dynasties,  and  the  inter- 
regnum, until  he  reaches  the  accession  of  Rhodolph,  the 


THE  DARK  AGES.  89 

founder  of  the  celebrated  house  of  Austria  ;  afterwards  he  may 
take  Coxe's  History  of  Austria. 

In  overcoming  this  early  part  of  the  French  and  German 
history,  much  assistance  will  be  derived,  not  only  from 
Mr.  Gibbon's  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall,  but  also  from 
a  Sketch  of  Universal  History,  printed  in  his  posthumous 
Works,  which  will  be  found,  in  every  word  of  it,  deserving  of 
attention. 

I  must  once  more  remind  you,  that  the  work  of  Mr.  Butler 
on  the  German  Empire  is  also  indispensably  necessary  ;  that 
the  Abbe  de  Mably  is  invaluable. 

These  will,  I  conceive,  be  sufficient ;  but  it  is  desirable  that 
to  these  should  be  added  the  work  of  Koch  on  the  Revolutions 
of  the  Middle  Ages :  the  first  edition  of  1790  may  be  easily 
procured,  and  might  be  sufficient ;  but  the  whole  work  has  been 
new  cast  and  amplified,  and  it  is  the  last  edition  of  1807  that 
should  rather  be  purchased. 

But  I  must  enter  a  little  further  into  particulars  ;  for  I 
must  confess,  that  this  subject  of  French  history  is,  from  the 
first,  and  always  continues  to  be,  one  most  perplexing  to  me  ; 
that  is,  it  is  perplexing  to  me  to  know  what  to  recommend 
with  any  chance  of  its  being  read.  For  the  German  history, 
indeed,  you  must  look  at  the  general  statements  of  Pfeffel  in 
some  general  way,  and  then  proceed  with  Coxe's  House  of 
Austria.  But  with  respect  to  the  history  of  France,  the  reg- 
ular historians,  Velly,  le  Pere  Daniel,  &c.,  are  so  voluminous, 
and  it  is  so  impossible  to  read  them,  that  it  is  difficult  to  know 
what  course  to  recommend. 

What  I  propose,  however,  to  the  student,  is  this,  that  he 
should  read  the  short  history  of  D'Anquetil,  which  he  may 
readily  do  :  there  is  very  little  reading  in  each  volume,  and 
the  first  volume,  and  most  of  the  second  and  third,  he  may 
read  slightly.  Or  that  he  should  meditate  well  the  history  of 
Renault :  or  the  history  of  Millot.  And  that,  in  reading  any 
of  these  histories,  he  should  consider,  in  the  first  place, 
whether  there  may  not  be  incidents  mentioned,  which  give 
him  as  clear  an  idea  of  the  times,  as  the  most  detailed  repre- 
sentation. Let  these  first  be  noted.,  and  let  these  be  all  that 
he  endeavours  to  remember. 

VOL.  i.  12 


90  LECTURE  IV. 

And  next,  let  him  consider  whether  some  of  the  topics  men- 
tioned are  not  of  such  importance,  that  it  may  be  advisable  to 
look  for  them  in  the  more  detailed  histories  of  Velly  and  Pere 
Daniel,  or  Mezeray  ;  or,  perhaps,  indeed,  pursue  them  through 
the  original  authors  to  which  these  writers  refer. 

I  will  endeavour  to  exemplify  what  I  propose  in  both  these 
particulars,  and  each  in  their  order. 

And,  first,  with  respect  to  incidents  characteristic  of  the 
state  of  the  French  constitution  and  of  the  times,  such  as  I 
think  it  will,  on  the  whole,  be  sufficient  to  remember  :  — 

In  the  reign  of  Hugh  Capet,  it  was  observed  by  Renault 
that  he  took  an  early  opportunity  of  having  his  son  crowned  at 
Orleans  ;  an  example  which  was  followed  by  his  successors  : 
and  this  is  an  indication  that  the  hereditary  nature  of  the  crown 
was  not  yet  established. 

It  is  observed  that  Louis  the  Eighth  ascended  the  throne 
without  any  such  previous  ceremony  ;  this  was  two  centuries 
and  a  half  afterwards,  and  affords  an  opposite  conclusion  : 
which  is  again  confirmed  by  observing  that  Louis  the  Seventh, 
a  century  before,  though  crowned  when  prince,  omitted  to  re- 
new the  ceremony  when  king. 

Again.  A  message  of  expostulation  or  command  was  sent 
from  Hugh  Capet  to  the  Count  de  Perigord,  which  ended 
with  asking  him,  who  made  him  a  Count  ?  The  reply  was, 
"  Those  who  made  you  a  king."  A  striking  specimen  of  the 
independent  sovereignty  of  the  barons,  and  of  the  original 
elective  and  baronial  nature  of  the  power  of  Hugh  Capet. 

His  son  Robert  was  excommunicated  on  account  of  his 
marriage,  and  therefore  every  thing  that  he  touched  was  purified 
before  it  could  be  touched  by  others ;  such  was  the  reasoning 
of  the  king's  friends  and  attendants. 

Robert,  to  save  his  subjects  from  the  guilt  of  perjury,  made 
them  swear  upon  a  shrine  from  which  he  had  withdrawn  the 
relics  ;  such  was  the  reasoning  of  the  king  himself. 

In  the  ensuing  reign  of  Henry  the  First,  was  established 
"  The  Truce  of  the  Lord,"  a  law  which  prohibited  private  com- 
bats from  Wednesday  night  to  Monday  morning,  because  the 
intermediate  days  had  been  consecrated  by  particular  passages 
in  the  life  and  sufferings  of  our  Saviour.  That  men  should 
be  resolved  to  destroy  each  other  in  private  war,  or  that 


THE  DARK  AGES.  91 

they  should  by  considerations  of  this  kind  be  checked  and 
moderated,  is  descriptive  of  the  age  ;  but  that  they  should 
consent  to  be  thus  far  bound,  and  no  further  ;  that  they  should 
reason  and  act  in  this  mixed,  inconsistent,  and  shuffling  man- 
ner between  their  passions  and  their  duty ;  this  is  descriptive 
not  of  these  men  and  of  this  age,  but  of  every  man  and  of 
every  age. 

The  next  king,  Philip  the  First,  in  1102,  buys  his  lands  and 
does  homage  for  them  to  the  Count  de  Sancerne  ;  the  king  to 
his  subject ;  a  striking  specimen  of  the  feudal  system.  And  it 
was  two  hundred  years  before  so  strange  a  submission  could 
be  altered  into  a  less  offensive  acknowledgment  ;  so  strongly 
established  were  the  provisions  of  this  feudal  system. 

Early  in  the  next  reign,  Louis  le  Gros  was  three  years  in 
mastering  the  castle  of  one  of  his  barons. 

A  few  years  afterwards,  when  the  same  king  was  threatened 
by  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  he  was  able  to  assemble  two 
hundred  thousand  men.  Such  was  the  feudal  system  ;  so  fitted 
for  sudden,  short,  and  violent  efforts  for  the  public  defence 
against  an  enemy  ;  so  inadequate  to  produce  the  benefits  of 
any  system  of  general  and  domestic  law,  equally  diffused  over 
the  whole  of  a  community. 

Near  sixty  years  afterwards,  his  son,  Louis  le  Jeune,  makes 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of  Becket ;  and  this,  in  the  lifetime 
of  Henry  the  Second.  On  his  return  he  has  his  son  crowned 
at  Rheims,  and  the  English  monarch  assists  at  the  ceremony 
as  Duke  of  Normandy. 

Instances  these  of  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  two  great  char- 
acteristics of  the  age,  superstition  and  the  feudal  system. 

The  next  reign  opens  with  the  efforts  of  Philip  Augustus 
to  repress  the  outrages  of  the  barons  ;  but  he  himself  falls 
upon  the  Jews,  and  announces  to  his  subjects,  that  they  are 
to  be  exonerated  from  all  Jewish  claims,  on  paying  one  fifth 
of  their  debt  to  the  royal  treasury. 

Such  was  the  general  ignorance  and  neglect  of  all  the  prin- 
ciples of  order  and  justice. 

Twenty  years  afterwards  we  see  an  ordinance  in  favor  of 
the  Jews  :  a  still  stronger  mark  of  the  wretched  state  of  com- 
merce ;  for,  from  these  two  instances  it  is  clear,  that,  abomi- 
nated as  the  Jews  were,  the  French  were  so  ignorant  of  com- 


92  LECTURE  IV. 

merce,  as  to  be  unable  to  do  without  them  ;  and,  merciless 
and  unjust  as  were  the  French,  the  Jews  were  contented  to 
endure  every  thing  from  them,  because  they  could  derive  so 
much  pecuniary  advantage  from  them. 

Louis  the  Eighth,  by  his  will,  after  declaring  his  eldest  son 
king,  gives  Artois  to  his  second  son,  Poictou  to  his  third, 
Anjou  and  Maine  to  his  fourth  ;  this  was  two  cejituries  and  a 
half  after  Hugh  Capet.  The  power  of  the  crown  had  still  to 
struggle  with  great  disadvantages,  if  its  domains  could  thus  be 
dispersed  by  the  sovereign  at  his  death,  among  the  youngest 
branches  of  his  family. 

Louis  the  Ninth,  the  first  prince  of  his  age,  made  it  a  point 
to  buy  the  crown  of  thorns,  which  had  been  placed  on  the  Sav- 
iour, from  the  Venetians,  and  different  relics  from  the  crusa- 
ders. The  same  prince  finds  it  necessary  to  publish  an  ordi- 
nance to  prevent  any  son  from  avenging  the  murder  of  his 
father  within  forty  days.  Superstition  and  violence  were, 
therefore,  the  characteristics  of  the  age  ;  and  an  age  of  devo- 
tion, (as  the  devotion  was  blind  and  ceremonial)  was  still  left 
to  be  an  age  of  crimes. 

Philip  le  Hardi,  his  successor,  ennobles  one  of  his  trades- 
men ;  the  commercial  interest  was  therefore  now  advancing. 
This  was  three  centuries  after  Hugh  Capet. 

In  Philip  le  Bel's  reign  were  enacted  various  sumptuary 
laws  :  an  indication  that  the  great  and  affluent  were  spending 
their  revenue  on  themselves,  and  therefore  insensibly  encour- 
aging commerce.  But  we  have  also  various  ordinances  against 
usury  :  an  indication  that  the  profits  of  money  were  high,  and 
therefore  that  commerce  was  still  in  its  infancy. 

Louis  Hutin,  his  successor,  in  1315,  passes  an  ordinance  to 
secure  the  serfs  from  being  distressed  in  their  persons,  goods, 
instruments  of  agriculture,  &c.  ;  soon  after  he  obliges  the  serfs 
to  purchase  their  liberty  by  selling  their  movables  :  indica- 
tions these,  how  degraded  had  been  their  condition,  but  that 
their  condition  was  on  the  whole  improving. 

In  1318,  the  Duke  of  Brittany  obtains  letters  of  remission 
from  Philip  le  Long  for  not  having  attended  his  coronation  : 
an  indication  that  the  power  of  the  crown  was  now  in  France 
advanced  and  acknowledged  ;  for  Brittany  was  at  that  time 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  independent  fiefs  remaining. 


THE  DARK  AGES.  93 

During  the  six  years  of  Charles  le  Bel,  from  1322  to  1328, 
the  relics  of  the  chapel  royal  still  accompanied  the  king  when- 
ever he  left  Paris,  to  celebrate  the  four  great  festivals  of  the 
year  ;  religion,  therefore,  still  consisted  not  a  little  in  vain 
ceremonials. 

Incidents  of  this  sort  mark  the  character  of  the  times  in  which 
they  appear.  The  Abridgment  of  the  President  Renault,  from 
which  they  are  taken,  is  too  concise,  and,  above  all,  gives  little 
information  respecting  the  constitution  of  France.  And  the 
student  must,  on  that  account,  be  more  attentive  to  every  par- 
ticular that  is  noted.  —  Millot  is  better. 

The  appendixes  of  Hume  afford  a  very  striking  display  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  characteristics  of  a  particular  reign  or 
period  may  be  selected  and  explained  by  a  diligent  and  discern- 
ing historian. 

In  this  manner,  I  have  endeavoured  to  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing, when  I  recommended  that  particular  incidents  in  the 
account  of  Henault,  or  Millot,  or  D'Anquetil,  should  be  fixed 
upon  as  characteristics  of  the  times,  and  made  subjects  of  re- 
flection. 

I  proceed  now  to  give  a  few  specimens  of  such  subjects  as 
are  also  mentioned  by  Henault,  which  may,  I  think,  be  of 
sufficient  importance  to  deserve  further  consideration  in  other 
authors,  more  particularly  in  the  valuable  and  very  detailed 
history  of  Velly,  and  in  the  philosophic  work  of  Mably.  —  For 
instance  : 

1st.  The  establishments  of  Louis  the  Ninth,  or  St.  Louis. 
These  are  very  deserving  attention  ;  they  exhibit  the  efforts 
that  were  made  by  the  most  amiable  and  revered  monarch  of 
his  time,  to  improve  the  jurisprudence  of  his  age.  Montes- 
quieu may  be  consulted.  There  is  a  full  account  given  of 
them  by  Velly. 

The  chief  object  of  St.  Louis  seems  to  have  been  to  prepare 
his  people  for  the  adjustment  of  their  quarrels,  not  by  private 
combat,  but  by  the  decisions  of  law,  after  an  examination  of 
witnesses.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  observed,  that  most 
of  the  great  objects  of  civil  and  penal  jurisprudence  appear  to 
have  occupied  his  attention  ;  and  it  is  not  very  possible  now 
to  understand  all  the  meaning,  and  therefore  all  the  merit,  of 
his  provisions  ;  but  the  great  design  of  the  whole  must  have 
been  to  soften  and  modify  the  jurisprudence  of  the  baronial 


94  LECTURE  IV. 

courts,  and  to  place  the  whole  within  the  reach  of  improve- 
ment by  opening  the  way  to  the  paramount  jurisdiction  of  the 
courts  of  the  sovereign. 

France,  in  the  time  of  St.  Louis,  was  divided  into  the  coun- 
try under  the  king's  obedience,  and  the  country  under  the  obe- 
dience of  the  great  barons.  It  was  not  possible  for  St.  Louis 
to  embody  his  own  opinions  of  equity  and  law,  and  then 
enforce  a  new  system  of  jurisprudence.  He  attempted  to 
reform  existing  systems,  by  introducing  one  more  improved 
within  his  own  dependencies,  and  holding  it  up  to  the  obser- 
vation of  the  other  parts  of  the  kingdom.  He  seems  every- 
where to  struggle  with  difficulties,  to  modify  and  to  balance, 
to  capitulate  with  the  evils  which  he  could  not  remove,  evils 
on  which,  by  any  other  conduct,  he  could  have  made  no  im- 
pression. Such  must  ever  be  the  true  reformer  ;  ardor  may 
animate  his  mind,  but  patience  must  be  his  virtue.  The  true 
reformer  is  the  philosopher  who  supposes  no  wonders  in  him- 
self, and  expects  them  not  in  others  ;  and  is  rather  the  sower 
who  goes  forth  to  sow  his  seed,  than  the  lord  who  comes 
to  gather  into  barns.  The  result  was  what  might  have  been 
expected,  the  labors  of  St.  Louis  were  successful,  and  he 
exhibited  the  great  criterion  of  genius,  that  of  advancing  his 
countrymen  in  improvement  a  step  beyond  the  point  at  which 
he  found  them. 

Again,  and  as  another  specimen  of  subjects  to  be  further 
considered.  The  reign  of  Philip  le  Bel  is  remarkable  for  the 
struggle  between  the  pope  and  the  king,  and  still  more  for 
the  first  assembly  of  the  states  general,  summoned  by  this 
prince  for  his  defence  and  justification  ;  but  which  must, 
however,  not  be  confounded  or  thought  the  same  with  the 
national  assemblies  in  the  times  of  Charlemagne.  These 
events  are  very  important,  and  may  be  considered  in  Velly. 
The  Commons  formed  a  distinct  part  of  this  assembly,  and 
they  took  their  share  in  animating  the  king  to  defend  the 
rights  of  his  kingdom  ;  but  their  language  spoke  an  infant 
power,  and  breathed  no  longer  the  independent  fierceness  of 
the  soldier  who  resisted  Clovis  :  —  "  Be  pleased  (they  said)  to 
guard  the  sovereign  freedom  of  your  kingdom,  for  in  temporal 
matters  the  king  can  acknowledge  no  sovereign  on  earth  but 
God  alone."  —  "  We  own  no  superior  in  temporals  but  the 


THE  DARK  AGES.  95 

king,"  said  the  nobles.  The  clergy  hesitated,  but  at  last 
confessed  their  duty  to  their  temporal  sovereign.  The  failure 
of  such  a  pope  as  Boniface  on  this  occasion  shows  clearly, 
that  the  power  of  the  see  had  already,  in  1303,  passed  its 
meridian. 

Again,  3dly.  The  French  Parliaments  are  a  proper  subject 
of  inquiry.  Philip  proposed  to  make  the  Parliaments  or 
courts  of  justice  stationary  ;  this  afterwards  took  place.  The 
account  given  by  Velly  should  be  consulted.  The  student  is 
no  doubt  aware,  that  the  dispensers  of  justice  should  be  few 
in  number,  and  neither  be  removed  nor  advanced  at  the  mere 
pleasure  of  the  executive  power,  that  is,  neither  be  exposed  to 
be  corrupted  nor  terrified. 

You  will  do  well  to  observe  the  changes  that  took  place, 
with  respect  to  this  part  of  the  French  constitution,  a  part  so 
important  to  the  happiness  of  every  community.  ^ 

Indeed,  one  of  the  great  subjects  of  this  early  period  of 
modern  history  is  the  constitution  of  France,  or  rather,  the 
fortunes  of  the  constitution  of  France. 

These  you  will  best  understand,  and  indeed  can  only  under- 
stand, by  meditating  the  work  of  the  Abbe  de  Mably.  His 
work  exhibits  the  philosophy  of  the  French  history.  I  ought 
to  speak  of  it  in  terms  of  the  utmost  gratitude  ;  and  I  must 
repeat  to  you,  that  I  do  no  more  than  mention  this  great 
subject  of  the  constitution  of  France,  and  this  masterly 
treatise  on  its  changes  and  fortunes,  that  I  may  impress  upon 
you  more  strongly,  or  rather,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  do  it, 
impose  upon  you  more  completely,  the  necessity  of  reading  the 
work  for  yourselves. 

I  must  now  make  a  pause.  I  must  consider  myself  as 
having  passed  through  the  first  and  most  repulsive  portion  of 
modern  history.  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  more  than  allude 
to,  and  recommend,  subjects  and  books,  that  have  employed 
the  lives  of  men  of  learning  and  reflection. 

But  the  whole  of  the  period  may,  I  hope,  be  estimated  in 
a  general  and  even  satisfactory  manner,  either  on  a  more  con- 
fined scale,  or  a  larger,  by  fixing  the  attention  upon  the  points 
and  the  books  I  have  mentioned.  I  say  a  confined  scale  or  a 
larger,  for  I  have  exhibited  both  to  you. 

And  now  that  we  have  to  take  our  leave  of  the  Dark  Ages, 


96  LECTURE  IV. 

I  cannot  but  make  one  effort  more  to  recommend  them  to  your 
attention  and  study. 

The  great  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  these  dark  ages, 
are,  as  I  conceive,  — 

1st.  That  civil  liberty  cannot  result,  in  the  first  instance, 
from  the  rude,  natural  liberty  of  barbarous  warriors. 

Again,  That  religion,  in  like  manner,  cannot  consist  with 
uncivilized  ignorance. 

The  power  of  the  sword  and  of  superstition,  of  the  military 
chief  and  of  the  priest  (of  the  priest  in  the  unfavorable  sense  of 
the  term,)  must  at  first  follow,  and  may  continue  for  ages. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  the  great  lesson  which  the  dark 
ages  exhibit,  is  also  that  which  human  life  is  unhappily  at 
every  moment  and  on  every  occasion  exhibiting,  —  the  abuse  of 
power. 

The  great  characteristics  of  the  dark  ages  are  the  feudal 
system  and  the  papal  power  ;  but  consider  each ;  the  inci- 
dents, as  they  are  termed,  of  the  feudal  system,  —  that  is,  the 
practices  that  obtained  under  the  feudal  system  ;  and,  again, 
the  doctrines  and  the  decrees  of  the  papal  see.  Outrageous 
as  many  of  these  may  seem,  they  were  still  but  specimens  of 
the  abuse  of  power. 

The  dark  ages  show  human  nature  under  its  most  unfavora- 
ble aspects,  but  it  is  still  human  nature. 

We  see  in  them  the  picture  of  our  ancestors,  but  it  is  only  a 
more  harsh  and  repulsive  portrait  of  ourselves. 

Observe,  for  instance,  the  feudal  system,  its  origin,  its 
results.  Among  a  set  of  independent  warriors,  the  distinc- 
tions of  the  weak  and  the  strong  naturally  arose,  the  leader 
and  the  follower,  the  military  chief  and  the  dependent. 
Society  necessarily  fell  into  little  knots  and  divisions  ;  in  the 
absence  of  all  central  government,  of  all  more  regular  para- 
mount authority,  each  military  chief  in  extensive  conquered 
countries  necessarily  became  a  petty  sovereign  ;  the  petty 
sovereign  a  despot. 

When  lands  were  once  received  on  the  general  principle  of 
homage,  the  natural  course  of  the  abuse  of  power  was  inevi- 
table ;  the  incidents,  that  is,  the  oppressions,  of  the  feudal 
system  followed  ;  but  for  all  these  disgusting  specimens  of 
legal  outrage  and  licensed  wrong  a  sort  of  reason  may  be 


THE  DARK  AGES.  97 

always  found  to  have  existed,  when  the  incident  is  traced  up 
to  its  first  elements  and  original  introduction. 

Consider,  in  like  manner,  the  Ecclesiastical  Power. 

The  priests  of  the  dark  ages  proceeded  only,  as  did  the 
barons,  with  the  same  unchecked  and  therefore  insatiable  self- 
ishness, to  subjugate  every  thing  to  their  will.  The  ecclesi- 
astical tyrants,  like  the  civil  tyrants,  only  converted  the  exist- 
ing situation  of  mankind  and  the  genuine  principles  of  human 
nature  to  their  own  gratification  and  aggandizement.  That 
they  should  attempt  to  do  so  is  not  wonderful,  nor  is  it  won- 
derful that  they  should  succeed. 

Our  barbarian  ancestors,  ignorant  themselves,  confided  in 
men  whom  they  considered  as  wise  and  learned,  and  who, 
comparatively,  were  wise  and  learned  ;  this  was  natural,  it  was 
even  reasonable  ;  they  had  no  other  resource  but  to  confide, 
and  they  had  no  means  of  learning  how  to  measure  their  con- 
fidence. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  that  the  distinguished  doctrines 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion  were  all  addressed  to  the 
most  established  feelings  of  the  human  heart  :  absolution,  con- 
fession, prayers  for  the  dead,  penance,  purgatory.  Their 
rites  and  ceremonies  not  less  so.  Not  to  mention  that  their 
tenets  were  and  are  still  fortified  by  texts  more  numerous,  and 
even  more  weighty  (I  do  not  say  conclusive),  than  we  of  the 
Protestant  communion  are  now  in  the  habit  of  condescending 
to  consider  or  even  to  know.  The  great  doctrine  of  all,  the 
paramount  authority  of  the  pope,  as  the  genuine  successor  of 
St.  Peter,  was  always  supported,  when  necessary,  by  the 
words  of  our  Saviour  to  that  apostle  ;  and  even  his  infallibility 
was  sufficiently  proved  to  our  rude  ancestors  by  the  obvious 
argument,  that  Christ  would  not  leave  his  church  without  a 
guide,  to  whom  recourse  might  be  had  under  all  those  diffi- 
culties which  must  necessarily  arise  among  the  contradictory 
views  of  contending  sects  ;  in  a  word,  those  doctrines  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  communion,  which,  at  a  very  late  period, 
could  subdue  for  a  time  even  the  learning  and  understanding 
of  a  Chillingworth,  may  readily  be  supposed  to  have  obtained 
an  easy  victory  over  the  unlettered  soldiers  of  the  dark  ages. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  thoughtlessness  of  mankind 
amid  the  occupations  of  civilized  life,  their  apprehensions  for 

VOL.    I.  13 


98  LECTURE  IV. 

the  future  are  unceasing,  the  moment  that  the  great  truth  of 
their  immortality  is  properly  announced  to  them  in  their  ruder 
stale.  These  apprehensions,  in  themselves  so  just  and  natural 
in  every  period  of  society,  when  united  to  ignorance  so  great 
as  that  which  existed  in  Europe  at  this  particular  period,  pro- 
duced effects,  which  at  first  sight  may  appear,  but  cannot  on 
reflection  appear,  astonishing.  The  most  fierce  and  savage 
soldier  became  docile  and  submissive  ;  the  most  powerful 
monarch  trembled  in  secret  on  his  throne,  and  found  his 
knights  and  his  vassals  a  pageant  and  a  show. 

But  the  single  terror  of  excommunication,  and  all  the  pre- 
paratory processes  of  spiritual  punishment,  were  perfectly  ad- 
equate to  produce  these  intellectual  and  political  wonders. 
No  one  in  our  own  happier  times  can  form  an  idea  of  what 
was  then  a  sentence  of  excommunication.  It  was  to  live 
alone  in  the  midst  of  society,  to  be  no  longer  human,  to  be 
without  the  character  of  man  here,  and  to  be  without  hope 
hereafter.  The  clergy  of  the  dark  ages  (to  adopt,  in  part, 
the  striking  illustration  of  Hume,  suggested,  indeed,  by  a  pas- 
sage in  Dryden's  "  Sebastian  "),  the  clergy  of  the  dark  ages 
had  obtained,  what  only  Archimedes  wanted  ;  they  had  got 
another  world  on  which  to  rest  their  engines,  and  they  moved 
this  world  at  their  pleasure. 

The  inquisition  itself  had  its  origin  in  the  most  acknowl- 
edged feelings  of  our  nature.  Its  advocates  and  its  ministers 
could  always  appeal  in  its  support  to  the  most  regular  conclu- 
sions of  the  human  mind. 

The  reasoning  was  then,  as  it  would  be  now  to  the  gen- 
erality of  mankind,  perfectly  intelligible  and  convincing. 
Truth,  it  was  said,  could  only  be  on  one  side  ;  by  error  we 
may  destroy  our  own  souls  and  those  of  others.  Error  must, 
therefore,  be  prevented,  and  if  not  by  gentle  means,  on 
account  of  the  greatness  of  the  object,  by  other  means,  by 
any  means,  by  force.  This  is  the  creed  of  intolerance  to  this 
hour. 

The  tribunal  that  appeared  with  all  its  tremendous  appa- 
ratus of  familiars,  inquisitors,  and  executioners,  was  but  a 
consequence  which,  in  an  unenlightened  period,  followed  of 
course. 


THE  DARK  AGES.  99 

The  great  and  only  difficult  victory  of  the  papal  see  was  over 
the  clergy  themselves,  —  the  law  of  celibacy.  When  this  tri- 
umph, that  had  been  long  in  preparation,  was  once  obtained  by 
the  renowned  Gregory  the  Seventh,  towards  the  close  of  the 
eleventh  century,  the  ecclesiastics  then  became  a  sort  of  regu- 
lar army,  with  a  dictator  at  their  head,  to  which  nothing  could 
be  successfully  opposed. 

But  even  this,  the  most  extraordinary  phenomenon  of  the 
whole,  may  still  be  traced  up,  as  well  as  the  existence  of  the 
various  monastic  orders,  with  all  their  extravagant  and,  at  first 
sight,  unnatural  observances,  to  principles  that  are,  notwith- 
standing, the  genuine  principles  of  the  human  heart,  and  insep- 
arable from  our  nature. 

The  esprit  de  corps,  —  the  merit  of  the  severer  virtues,  of 
self-denial,  of  self-abasement,  —  these,  united  with  the  reli- 
gious principle,  gave  occasion  to  the  monastic  character  and 
all  its  observances,  and  they  form  at  once  a  solution  of  all 
these  outrageous  deviations  from  the  more  calm  and  ordinary 
suggestions  of  the  common  sense  and  common  feelings  of  man- 
kind. 

Observances  of  this  kind  have,  in  fact,  existed  among  the 
nations  of  every  clime  and  age  ;  they  exist  in  India  at  this  mo- 
ment. But  consider  the  principles  we  have  mentioned.  This 
esprit  de  corps  is  founded  on  the  sympathies,  on  some  of  the 
most  effective  sympathies,  of  the  human  mind  ;  and  the  se- 
verer virtues  of  self-control,  of  self-denial,  of  self-abase- 
ment, of  chastity,  and  again  the  virtues  of  humility  and  of 
piety,  are  all  virtues  in  themselves  so  awful  and  respectable, 
that  they  have  always,  even  in  their  excesses,  received  the  ad- 
miration of  mankind,  and  they  are  the  highest  and  the  best 
praise  of  man,  when  well  directed  and  attempered  ;  that  they 
should  not  be  so  in  times  of  ignorance,  can  be  matter  of  no  sur- 
prise ;  these  are  subjects  which  are  often  misunderstood,  even 
among  ourselves. 

Pursue  the  same  train  of  reasoning  to  the  less  fatal,  less  de- 
grading extravagances  of  this  dark  period,  —  the  institution  of 
Chivalry,  for  instance,  —  the  expeditions  to  the  Holy  Land. 

Chivalry,  if  considered  in  its  original  elements,  is  only  a  very 
striking  testimony  to  those  more  generous  principles  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  which,  it  should  seem,  can  never  be  separated  from 


100  LECTURE  IV. 

our  nature  under  any,  the  most  disorderly  state  of  society. 
The  same  testimony  seems  to  have  been  offered  in  times  the 
most  remote. 

The  knights  of  the  middle  ages  were  not  a  little  the  counter- 
parts, however  improved,  of  the  fabled  gods  and  heroes  of  an- 
tiquity, of  Hercules  and  Theseus  ;  and  have  been  celebrated 
in  the  same  romantic  manner.  They  were  the  redressers  of 
oppression  ;  the  moral  benefactors  of  the  community  in  which 
they  lived  ;  the  mirrors  of  the  noblest  qualities  of  the  human 
character  ;  the  exhibitors  of  those  two  great  virtues  of  tender- 
ness and  courage,  which  were  then  so  peculiarly  necessary  to 
society.  The  foundations  of  the  chivalrous  character  were  laid 
in  human  nature,  in  the  consciousness  that  belongs  to  good  ac- 
tions, and  in  that  sensibility  to  the  applause  of  others,  from 
which  those  who  can  really  perform  good  actions,  neither  can 
nor  need  be  exempt. 

Original  principles  like  these  could  easily  be  associated  in  a 
religious  age  with  the  religious  principle,  more  especially  with 
Christianity,  the  religion  of  benevolence  :  the  religion  which, 
of  all  others,  teaches  us  to  think  most  of  those  around  us,  and 
least  of  ourselves. 

The  only  part  of  the  chivalrous  character,  which  it  is  some- 
what difficult  to  account  for,  is  that  delicate  devotion  to  the  fair 
sex  by  which  it  was  so  strongly  and  often  so  whimsically  dis- 
tinguished. 

This  devotion  must  be  traced  up  to  the  woods  of  Germany  ; 
where,  however  it  may  be  explained,  it  appears  from  Tacitus, 
that  the  other  sex  had  even  more  than  their  natural  share  of  im- 
portance and  respect.  This  natural  importance  and  respect 
could  not  but  be  materially  strengthened  and  improved  subse- 
quently, by  the  influence  of  the  Christian  religion,  which  still 
existed  amidst  the  confusions  of  Europe,  and  survived  them. 
This  religion  could  not  but  have  made  the  weaker  sex  more 
worthy  of  the  estimation  of  the  stronger,  and  the  stronger,  in  its 
turn,  more  fitted  to  comprehend  and  relish  the  more  gentle  vir- 
tues of  the  weaker. 

The  subsequent  state  of  society,  where  the  great  families  lived 
often  in  a  state  of  separation  and  hostility,  must  have  interposed 
those  difficulties  to  the  gratification  of  the  sexual  passion,  which 
have  such  a  remarkable  tendency  to  soften  and  refine  it. 


THE  DARK  AGES.  101 

Even  in  civilized  life  we  see  this  passion  so  affected  by 
difficulties,  as  sometimes  to  be  sublimed  into  extravagances, 
as  wild  as  those  of  the  middle  ages  ;  as  preposterous  as  were 
ever  exhibited  by  those  who  maintained  by  arms  the  beauty 
of  their  mistresses  against  all  comers. 

Humanity  and  courage  are  the  virtues  which  the  softer  sex 
must  from  their  very  nature  be  always  most  disposed  to  pat- 
ronize. The  knight  and  his  lady  were  thus  formed  in  their 
characters  for  each  other.  Jousts  and  tournaments  still  fur- 
ther contributed  to  animate  all  the  natural  sentiments  with 
which  both  were  inspired  ;  and  these  trials  of  skill  and  spec- 
tacles of  magnificence  were  the  necessary  exhibitions  of  the 
merits  of  both,  of  beauty  on  the  one  side,  and  military  prowess 
on  the  other  ;  and  were  the  obvious  resources  of  those,  who 
must  otherwise  have  been  without  occupation  and  amusement, 
and  whose  minds  could  not  at  that  period  be  diversified  by  all 
the  intellectual  pursuits  of  modern  and  more  civilized  life. 

On  the  whole,  there  was  in  chivalry  much  which  the  natural 
ardor  and  enthusiasm  of  the  human  character  might  convert 
into  the  extravagant,  and  sometimes  into  the  ridiculous,  and 
in  this  state  it  might  be  seized  upon  by  a  man  of  genius  like 
Cervantes,  and,  when  arrayed  in  the  colors  of  his  own  pleas- 
antry and  fancy,  be  transmitted  to  the  amusement  of  posterity  ; 
but  the  virtues  of  the  knight,  of  the  hero  of  chivalry,  were  real 
and  substantial  virtues.  Courtesy  to  the  low  ;  respect  to  the 
high  ;  tenderness  to  the  softer  sex,  and  loyalty  to  the  prince  ; 
courage  and  piety  ;  gentleness  and  modesty ;  veracity  and 
frankness  ;  these,  after  all,  are  the  virtues  of  the  human  char- 
acter ;  and  whatever  appearances  they  might  assume  under 
the  particular  circumstances  of  these  ages,  they  are  still  the 
proper  objects  of  the  love  and  respect  of  mankind  under  every 
circumstance  and  in  every  age. 

The  knights,  it  must  be  confessed,  received  an  education 
that  was  too  military  to  be  favorable  to  knowledge  ;  they  were 
not  the  scholars  or  the  men  of  science  of  their  day,  but  they 
contributed,  notwithstanding,  to  elevate  and  humanize  the  times 
in  which  they  lived,  and  they  transmitted,  and  they  indeed 
thoroughly  engrafted  upon  the  European  character,  the  gener- 
ous and  manly  virtues. 

Lastly,  to  take  the  other  specimen,  which  we  have  men- 
tioned, of  these  middle  ages,  the  Crusades. 


102  LECTUBE  IV. 

These  are,  according  to  Mr.  Hume,  the  most  durable  mon- 
ument of  human  folly  :  it  may  be  so  ;  but  whatever  may  have 
been  the  less  worthy  motives,  that  contributed  to  carry  such 
myriads  to  the  Holy  Land,  no  warriors  would  have  reached 
it,  if  a  piety,  however  unenlightened,  if  a  military  spirit,  how- 
ever rude,  that  is,  if  devotion  and  courage,  had  not  been  the 
great  actuating  principles  of  the  age  ;  but  courage  and  devo- 
tion are  still  virtues,  however  unfortunately  exercised  ;  the 
difference  between  these  crusaders  and  ourselves  is  still  only 
that  of  a  more  intelligent  faith  in  us,  and  better  regulated  feel- 
ings. Piety  and  magnanimity  are  still  our  virtues,  as  they 
were  theirs. 

The  crusaders,  indeed,  were  inflamed  by  the  images  of  the 
Holy  Land  ;  for  they  saw,  and  they  were  overpowered  with 
indignation  when  they  saw,  the  sacred  earth,  which  had  been 
blessed  by  the  footsteps  of  our  Saviour,  profaned  by  the  tread 
of  Barbarians,  who  rejected  his  faith,  and  outraged  his  pious 
and  unoffending  followers  :  but  in  this  the  crusaders  submitted 
only  to  the  associations  of  their  nature.  The  same  power 
of  association  is  still  the  great  salutary  law  by  which  we, 
too,  are  animated  or  subdued  ;  by  which  we,  too,  are  hur- 
ried into  action,  or  moulded  into  habit  ;  and  it  is  as  impos- 
sible for  us  now,  as  it  was  to  the  crusaders  of  the  middle 
ages,  to  behold,  without  affection  and  reverence,  whatever  has 
been  once  connected  with  objects  that  are  dear  and  venerable 
in  our  eyes. 

It  is  thus  that  things,  in  themselves  the  most  inanimate,  are 
every  day  seen  to  assume  almost  the  nature  of  life  and  exis- 
tence. Is  there  at  Runnymede  (for  instance)  to  be  found 
nothing  more  than  the  beauty  of  the  scene  ?  Do  we  walk 
without  emotion  amidst  the  ruins  of  ancient  Rome  ?  Is  Pal- 
estine a  land,  and  Jerusalem  a  city,  like  a  common  land  and  a 
common  city  ?  Far  different  is  the  answer  which  nature  has 
unalterably  given  to  appeals  of  this  kind  in  every  climate  and 
in  every  heart.  And  if,  indeed,  the  sepulchre  in  which  our 
Saviour  was  inurned  ;  if  indeed  the  cross  on  which  he  expired, 
could  be  presented  to  our  eyes  ;  if  we  could  indeed  believe 
that  such  were  in  truth  the  objects  actually  exhibited  to  our 
view,  assuredly  we  should  sink  in  reverence,  as  did  our  fore- 
fathers, before  such  affecting  images  of  the  past  ;  assuredly  with 


THE  DARK   AGES.  103 

the  sufferer  himself  we  should  identify  these  visible  instruments 
of  his  sufferings  ;  and  the  sacrifice  of  our  hearts  would  not  be 
the  idolatry  of  blindness,  but  the  natural  effusion  of  irresistible 
devotion  and  awe. 

It  is  not  the  sentiments  by  which  these  heroes  were  impelled 
that  we  can  bear  to  censure  ;  it  is  the  excess  to  which  they 
were  carried  ;  it  is  the  direction  which  they  took  ;  it  is  piety 
preposterously  exercised  ;  it  is  courage  unlawfully  employed  ; 
the  extravagances  to  which  virtue  and  religion  may  be  made 
subservient,  not  virtue  and  religion. 

So  natural  indeed  are  such  sacred  principles,  so  attractive, 
so  respectable  even  in  their  excesses,  that  we  willingly  allow 
to  our  imagination  the  facility,  which  it  loves,  of  moulding 
into  visions  of  sublimity  and  beauty  the  forms  and  the  scenes 
which  time  has  now  removed  within  its  softened  twilight, 
and  in  some  respects  secured  from  the  intrusions  of  our  colder 
reason. 

Who  is  there  that  can  entirely  escape  from  the  delusion 
and  the  charm  of  Pilgrims  gray  and  Red-cross  Knights,  the 
fights  of  Ascalon  and  the  siege  of  Acre,  the  prowess  and 
the  renown  of  our  lion-hearted  Richard  ?  It  is  by  an  effort, 
an  unwilling  effort,  that  we  turn  to  think  of  the  bloodshed  and 
desolation,  the  disease  and  famine,  the  pain  and  death,  by 
which  these  unhappy  enterprises  were  accompanied. 

Little  need  be  said  of  the  custom  of  duelling  by  which  these 
ages  were  so  distinguished.  The  custom  is  founded  too 
evidently  on  some  of  the  most  powerful  principles  of  our 
nature,  particularly  that  of  resentment ;  given  us  for  the  wisest 
purposes,  and  necessary  to  our  well-being,  but  of  all  others 
the  principle  that  has  been  most  abused  by  the  folly  of 
mankind. 

The  practice  has  even  descended  to  our  own  times,  though 
we  have  no  longer  the  reasons  or  the  excuse  which  our  fore- 
fathers had  for  such  nefarious  or  ridiculous  or  misguided 
excesses  of  just  and  honorable  sentiment.  In  the  absence  of 
all  general  law,  men  were,  in  former  times,  naturally  a  law  unto 
themselves.  These  appeals,  too,  were  considered,  at  that 
period,  as  appeals  to  Heaven  ;  there  was  here  something  of 
necessity,  something  of  reasonableness.  With  respect  to  our- 
selves, on  the  contrary,  experience  has  taught  us  no  longer 


104  LECTURE  IV. 

to  expect  these  extraordinary  interpositions  to  defend  the 
right  :  a  more  enlarged  philosophy  has  served  to  show  us  the 
impropriety  of  supposing  that  the  general  laws  of  the  Creator 
should  be  continually  suspended  for  the  adjustment  of  our 
quarrels,  or  that  the  rewards  and  punishments,  which  are  to 
await  innocence  and  guilt  hereafter,  should  be  regularly 
expected  and  realized  in  our  present  state ;  but  customs 
remain,  when  the  reasons  of  them  have  ceased.  In  the  midst 
of  our  lawyers,  our  sages,  and  our  divines,  we  violate  every 
precept  of  law,  morality,  and  religion  ;  in  the  midst  of  civiliza- 
tion, improvement,  and  social  happiness,  we  suffer  our  domes- 
tic charities  and  our  peace,  here  and  hereafter,  to  hang  upon 
the  chance  of  an  angry  look  or  word  ;  and  we  retain  the  pre- 
posterous folly,  while  we  have  lost  the  ignorance  ;  the  bloody 
ferocity,  but  no  longer  the  humble  piety,  of  our  ancestors. 

It  is  thus  that  the  history  of  the  dark  and  middle  ages, 
like  every  other  part  of  history,  is  still  but  a  representation  of 
human  nature,  and,  as  such,  deserving  of  our  curiosity  and 
examination. 

The  poet  may,  no  doubt,  find  the  richest  materials  amid 
transactions,  where  the  passions  were  so  violently  excited, 
and  in  a  period  when  human  manners  were  cast  into  forms 
so  striking  and  so  different  from  our  own  ;  and  the  antiquarian, 
the  constitutional  lawyer,  and  the  philosopher  must  find, 
amid  the  opinions  and  practices  of  these  illiterate  Barbarians, 
the  origin  and  foundation  of  the  laws,  the  sentiments,  and  the 
customs,  that  distinguish  Europe  from  the  other  quarters  of 
the  world,  and  the  different  kingdoms  of  Europe  from  each 
other. 

But  to  the  moralist  and  the  statesman  the  great  reflection 
is  everywhere  the  same  ;  the  deplorable  nature  of  ignorance  ; 
the  value  of  every  thing  which  can  enlighten  mankind  ;  the 
merit  of  every  man  who  can  contribute  to  open  the  views  or 
strengthen  the  understanding  of  his  fellow  creatures.  It  is 
but  too  evident,  from  the  history  of  these  periods  of  darkness, 
that  we  have  only  to  suppose  a  state  of  society,  where  the 
general  ignorance  shall  be  sufficiently  complete  ;  and  impos- 
sibilities themselves  seem  realized  ;  men  may  find  degradation 
in  the  most  ennobling  sentiments  of  their  nature,  and  destruc- 
tion and  crimes  in  their  best  virtues.  - 


NOTES. 


[The  Notes  are  always  taken  from  Note-books  that  were  laid  on  the 
table  of  the  Lecture  Room.] 


I. 

SAVAGE  and  civilized  life  may  each  exhibit  the  disgusting  extremes  of  op- 
posite evils ;  but  it  is  in  vain  to  fly  from  the  one,  to  be  lost  in  the  still  more 
frightful  degradation  of  the  other ;  not  to  say  that  the  propensities,  and  ca- 
pacities, and  irresistible  impulses  of  our  nature  seem  clearly  to  indicate  that 
we  are  not  intended  for  solitude  and  torpor,  but  for  society  and  improvement. 
•« 

II. 

IT  is  not  easy  to  lay  down  maxims  in  politics.  Man  is  such  a  compound 
being  of  reason  and  feeling,  so  alive  to  the  impression  of  the  moment,  so 
entirely  at  the  mercy  (in  his  political  capacity,  at  least,)  of  the  present  un- 
easiness. 

The  political  discourses  of  Hume  are  the  best  models  we  have  of  the  rea- 
soning that  belongs  to  subjects  of  this  nature.  They  best  admonish  us  of 
the  slow  step  with  which  we  should  advance,  and  the  wary  distrust  with 
which  we  should  look  around,  before  we  think  that  we  have  reached  a  maxim 
in  politics,  that  is,  a  general  principle,  on  the  steady  efficiency  of  which,  in 
real  practice,  we  may  always  depend. 

"Civil  knowledge,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "is  conversant  about  a  subject, 
which  of  all  others  is  most  immersed  in  matter,  and  hardliest  reduced  to 
axiom."  « 

III. 
Recueil  des  Historiens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France. 

RELIGIOUS  Societies,  like  those  of  the  Benedictines,  have  been  often  stig- 
matized as  the  abodes  of  laziness  and  superstition  ;  but  sweeping  accusations 
are  seldom  just.  To  this  society,  for  instance,  literature  is  indebted  for 
works  of  the  most  serious  importance  ;  works  of  such  labor  and  extent,  that 
they  have  been  begun  by  one  generation  of  men,  and  left  to  be  prosecuted 
and  finished  by  those  which  succeeded. 

This  is  a  sort  of  service  which  could  not  well  have  been  rendered  to  man- 
kind but  by  those  who  did  not  labor  for  profit,  and  who  were  always  in  a  state 
of  continued  existence,  by  being  linked  together  as  members  of  the  same 
society. 

VOL.    I.  14 


106  NOTES. 

IV. 

CHARLEMAGNE  undertook,  at  his  leisure,  to  learn  to  write.  What  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  age  ! 

"  Sed  partim  prospere  successit,"  says  Eginhart.  "  Labor  praeposterus  ac 
sero  inchoatus." 

Of  such  a  man,  so  unlettered,  the  merit  is  the  greater,  as  we  are  told,  at 
the  same  time, — 

That  he  attended  to  the  liberal  education  of  his  children. 

That  he  had  books  read  to  him  while  at  table. 

That  he  acquired  the  Latin  language,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek. 

That  he  zealously  cultivated  the  liberal  arts,  and  bestowed  on  the  profes- 
sors every  mark  of  respect  and  honor. 

That  he  studied  the  sciences  of  rhetoric,  logic,  and  astronomy. 

That  he  ordered  the  laws  of  his  subject  nations  to  be  drawn  up  and  reduced 
to  writing. 

His  great  merit  seems  to  have  been,  that  he  knew  his  best  interests  and 
duties,  and,  therefore,  felt  for  the  people,  and  patronized  the  free  assemblies 
of  the  state. 

V. 

Prologus  Legis  Salica. 

PLACUIT  atque  convenit  inter  Francos,  et  eorum  proceres,  ut  propter  ser- 
vandurn  inter  se  pacis  studium,  omnia  incrementa  veterum  rixarum  resecare 
deberent :  et  quia  cseteris  gentibus  juxta  se  positis  praeeminebant,  ita  etiam 
legum  auctoritate  praacellerent ;  ut  juxla  qualitatem  causarum,  sumeret  crimi- 
nalis  actio  terminum.  Exstiterunt  igitur  inter  eos  electi  de  pluribus  quatuor 
viri  his  nominibus,  Wisigastus,  Bodogastus,  Salogastus,  et  Widogastus,  in 
villis  quae  ultra  Rhenum  sunt  Salehaim,  et  Bodehaim,  et  Widohaim.  Qui 
per  tres  mallos  (markets)  convenientes  omnes  causarum  originem  solicite  dis- 
cutiendo  tractantes,  de  singulis  judicium  decreverunt  hoc  modo  :  — 

Anno  ab  incarnatione  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi  DCCXCVIII.  sexta, 
dominus  Carolus  Rex  Francorum  inclytus  hunc  libellum,  tractatus  legis  Sa- 
licae  scribere  ordinavit. 

VI. 

THE  conquered  Romans  were  indulged  by  the  Barbarians  in  the  free  use 
of  their  own  law  (the  Theodosian  Code),  especially  in  the  cases  of  marriage, 
inheritance,  and  other  important  transactions  of  life. 

VII. 

WITH  respect  to  property,  the  student  will  learn  the  situation  of  the  Ro- 
mans by  consulting  the  thirtieth  book  of  Montesquieu,  from  the  fifth  chapter 
to  the  sixteenth. 

The  Franks  seem  to  have  seized  only  on  a  part  of  their  lands,  probably  be- 
cause, in  the  then  existing  state  of  society,  they  had  no  occasion  for  the 
whole.  Those  of  the  northern  nations  who  settled  near  Italy  were  induced 
or  obliged  to  treat  them  more  liberally. 


NOTES.  107 

The  Burgundians,  for  instance,  took  two  thirds  of  the  land,  and  one  third 
of  the  bondmen. 

The  slaves  were  not  Romans,  but  those  unhappy  men  who  were  carried 
into  captivity  by  a  conquering  army,  retiring  (as  was  often  the  case)  from 
a  province  or  a  kingdom,  which  it  had  overrun. 

Freemen  among  the  Barbarians  seem  to  have  paid  no  taxes  themselves. 

Of  the  Romans,  some  seem  to  have  been  proprietors,  and  some  tributaries  : 
by  which  term  was  probably  meant  those  who  paid  rent. 

When  the  Burgundian  empire  was  attacked  by  Clovis,  its  fall  was  delayed 
by  the  assistance  which  the  Burgundians  received  from  their  conquered  sub- 
jects, the  Romans  ;  one  instance  among  many  of  the  policy  of  all  mild  gov- 
ernment, —  so  often  exhibited,  but  in  vain,  to  the  humanity  of  those,  who 
direct  the  counsels  of  states  and  empires. 

The  Burgundians,  the  Lombards,  and  the  Visigoths,  had  been  more  con- 
nected with  the  Romans ;  and  their  laws  and  their  codes  are,  therefore, 
favorably  distinguished  from  the  codes  of  the  more  simple  and  rude  bar- 
barians. 


VIII. 

MANY  efforts  seem  to  have  been  made  by  these  Barbarians  to  procure 
integrity  and  despatch  in  the  judges,  and  other  officers  connected  with  the 
administration  of  justice.  This  is  the  great  difficulty.  "  Custodes  ipsos 
quis  custodiet  ? " 

The  judges  must  be  few,  the  bar  intelligent,  the  public  interested  in  their 
own  political  happiness  :  that  is,  the  judges  of  a  country,  like  all  other  hu- 
man beings,  can  only  be  kept  virtuous  by  being  subjected  to  the  criticism 
of  their  fellow-creatures. 


IX. 

THESE  ancient  codes  and  capitularies  remained  long  in  force  in  Germany, 
longer  in  Italy,  still  longer  in  France.  Their  authority  was  shaken  by  the 
incursions  of  the  Normans,  and  by  the  weakness  of  government  under  the 
successors  of  Charlemagne. 

Curious  particulars  occur  in  these  capitularies. 

The  influence  of  the  clergy  more  especially,  the  deep  and  dark  supersti- 
tion of  the  people,  and  on  the  whole,  the  unhappy  state  o  f  society. 

The  clergy,  however,  were  considered  as  the  patrons  and  guardians  of 
justice  and  humanity,  as  far  as  justice  and  humanity  were  then  understood. 

"  Sacerdotes  Dei,"  says  one  of  the  laws  (30th)  of  the  Visigoths,  "  quibus 
pro  remediis  oppressorum  vel  pauperum,  divinitus  cura  commissa  est,"  &c. 
&c. 

This  was  a  law  of  one  of  their  princes  in  the  year  670. 


X. 

SYBIPTOMS  of  the  feudal  system  appear  in  these  laws. 
Of  the  9th  law  of  the  9th  book,  the  title  is,  —  "  De  his,  qui  in  exercitum 
constitute  loco,  vel  tempore  finito  non  successerint,  vei  quee   pars  servorum 


108  NOTES. 

unicvjusque  in  eadem  expeditione   debeat  proficisci."     But  quite  distinctly 
about  the  year  801,  in  the  edicts  of  Charlemagne,  cap.  1. 

Imprimis,  —  "  quicunque  beneficia  habere  videntur,  omnes  in  liostem  veni- 
ant."     So  the  second.     And  again,  — «'  Omnis  liber  homo,"  &c.  &c. 


XI. 

PARTICULARS  of  an  amusing  nature  are  sometimes  found  in  these  ancient 
documents.  "  Si  quis  medicus,"  says  one  of  the  laws  of  the  Visigoths  who 
possessed  Spain,  "  dum  phlebotomum  exerceat,  et  ingenuum  debilitaverit 
centum  solidos  coactus  exsolvet.  Si  vero  mortuus  fuerit,  continuo  propin- 
quis  trahendus  est,  ut  quod  de  eo  voluerint,  habeant  potestatem." 

The  Sangrados  of  Spain  seem  to  have  made  their  appearance  early. 

XII. 

THE  superstition  of  the  age,  as  may  be  supposed,  furnishes  many  laws 
and  observances  and  ceremonies  that  may  make  the  reader  in  his  happier 
state  of  religious  knowledge  "  smile  or  sigh,"  according  to  his  particular 
temperament. 

The  intolerance  of  these  lawgivers  is  such  as  might  be  expected  :  for  the 
barbarian  of  the  seventh  century  speaks  thus,  alluding  to  unbelievers  (a  title 
in  all  probability  then  easily  acquired),  "  in  virtute  Dei  aggrediar,  hostes  ejus 
insequar,  eemulos  ejus  prosequar,"  &c.  &c.,  till  he  renders  them  like  the 
"  pulverem  aut  luteum  solidum  platearum,"  &c.  &c. 

The  reason  why  his  fellow-creatures  are  to  be  thus  trampled  into  the  dust, 
is  much  the  same  that  would  have  been  given  by  the  barbarians  of  all  sub- 
sequent centuries ;  "  ut  fideles  populos  in  religionis  sacrse  pace  possederem, 
atque  infideles  ad  concordiam  pacis  adduxerim,  et  mihi  crescat  in  gloria 
premium,  ut  virtutem  Dei  dilatem  atque  augeam  regnum." 

XIII. 

AGAINST  the  poor  Jews  there  was  an  edict;  "  Ne  Judsei  sectam  suam 
defendere  audeant,"  —  which  it  seems  was  "  religioni  nostrse  insultantes," 
&c. 

Yet  were  lawgivers  like  these  able  to  express  themselves,  as  may  be  seen 
in  the  16th  law,  with  all  the  fervor  of  eloquence  and  piety  :  —  "  Juro  et  per 
Jesum,"  &c.  dec.  p.  232. 


XIV. 

IN  these  codes  and  capitularies  may  be  seen  evidently  the  origin  of  many 
of  the  peculiarities  of  our  own  laws  and  customs  :  and  the  practice  of  all  the 
more  distinguishing  rites  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion  :  the  services, 
even  as  here  given,  are  solemn  and  affecting. 

Lindenbrogius  and  Baluze  are  the  authors,  where  every  thing  that  con- 
cerns these  subjects  is  to  be  found. 

On  the  feudal  system  I  have  made  a  few  observations  and  bound  them  up 
separately  with  Mr.  Butler's  note,  and  they  lie  on  the  table. 


NOTES.  109 


XV. 

Progress  of  Society. 

IT  is  to  be  feared,  that  Stuart,  in  his  criticisms  on  Dr.  Robertson,  was  but 
too  much  affected  by  feelings  of  personal  animosity  :  he  was  a  man  of  pow- 
erful but  irregular  mind,  and,  in  his  differences  with  such  a  man  as  the  Prin- 
cipal, must  have  been  in  the  wrong.  I  have  understood  this  to  be  the  case. 


XVI. 

Mahomet. 

THE  dreadful  alliance  of  military  and  religious  enthusiasm  has  been  often 
exhibited  on  the  theatre  of  the  world  :  but  the  fact  is,  that  the  military  spirit 
is  easily  associated  with  any  strong  passion. 

The  soldiers  of  the  Roman  republic  in  ancient  times,  and  of  the  French 
nation  in  our  own  times,  are  instances  to  this  effect ;  and  the  rulers  of  any 
state  should  be  very  careful  how  they  place  their  enemies  within  the  reach  of 
any  union  of  this  kind. 

For  the  life  of  Mahomet  we  have  to  depend  on  Abulfeda,  who  did  not  reign 
till  1310,  and  who  cannot  appeal  to  any  writer  of  the  first  century  of  the  He- 
gira.  This  is  a  disagreeable  circumstance.  —  See  Gibbon,  note,  chap.  50. 

XVII. 

THE  French  peers  seem  never  to  have  been  satisfied,  unless  the  origin  of 
their  distinction  was  lost  in  the  obscurity  of  the  earliest  ages. 

A  reasonable  opinion  is  delivered  by  the  president  Henault  in  the  life  of 
Hugh  Capet :  Montesquieu  may  be  consulted,  and  Mably. 

XVIII. 

THE  rise  of  the  Norman  empire  in  Sicily,  in  the  relation  of  which  history 
becomes  romance,  should  also  be  considered.  It  may  be  read  in  Gibbon. 


XIX. 

THE  history  of  the  Albigenses,  and  the  crusade  against  them,  are  deserving 
of  attention.  An  account  may  be  found  in  Pere  Daniel,  or  rather  in  Velly. 

But  the  French  writers  must  always  be  read  with  due  allowance,  when  the 
principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  are  concerned. 

These  heretics,  the  Albigenses,  were  among  the  precursors  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

Their  manners  and  opinions  have  been  probably  misrepresented  and  vili- 
fied. Their  fate  and  history  is  melancholy  and  interesting. 

The  subject  seems  properly  stated  by  Dr.  Rankin,  in  his  late  History  of 
France  ;  and  it  is  here,  that  the  student  will  in  the  most  ready  manner  ac- 
quire a  proper  idea  of  it. 


110  NOTES. 


XX. 

St.  Louis  (Louis  the  Ninth,  of  France). 

THE  penal  provisions  of  St.  Louis  bear  a  sanguinary  and  ferocious  char- 
acter. 

The  efforts  which  he  made  for  the  serfs  became,  from  their  very  feeble- 
ness, an  honor  to  the  legislator,  and  an  additional  disgrace  to  the  age. 

The  serf,  says  the  lawgiver,  may  be  pursued  wherever  he  flies  for  liberty, 
But  all  causes  of  serfage  are  to  be  decided  by  the  ordinary  judges  of  the 
crown. 

In  all  cases,  where  the  proofs  for  and  against  the  serfage  are  equal,  let  the 
decision  be  in  favor  of  liberty. 

Let  the  child  of  a  serf  and  a  freewoman  be  free  like  the  mother  :  "  a  new 
and  extraordinary  favor,"  says  the  historian. 


XXI. 

WITH  respect  to  the  more  early  jurisprudence  of  France,  it  may  be  ob- 
served, that  the  ancient  codes  and  capitularies  had  fallen  into  disuse ;  ancient 
customs,  which  had  always  existed  along  with  them,  multiplied  as  they  de- 
clined. 

Written  collections  of  these  were  often  made. 

The  monarchs  of  the  Capetian  race,  when  they  gave  their  fiefs,  prescribed 
by  charter  the  terms  on  which  they  were  to  be  held. 

The  result  of  the  whole  was,  that  each  seignory  had  its  particular  usages. 

Among  such  various  systems  of  jurisprudence,  the  "  establishments  of  St. 
Louis  "  have  been  always  considered  with  great  respect,  on  account  of  their 
wisdom  and  antiquity. 

In  1453,  Charles  the  Seventh  made  an  effort  to  reduce  the  various  customs 
of  France  into  some  form,  and  to  ascertain  their  nature.  A  measure  of  such 
difficulty,  that  it  lingered  till  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Twelfth,  and  was  not 
completed  till  1609.  The  whole,  when  finished  and  sanctioned,  was  called 
"  Coutumier  du  France,"  and  has  been  edited  by  Richenburgh,  in  four  folio 
volumes.  See  Butler's  Horse  Juridical. 

XXII. 

Power  of  the  Pope. 

CHARLEMAGNE  elected  the  Pope,  and  was,  therefore,  supreme  ;  but  the 
Pope  had  anointed  Charlemagne,  and  was,  therefore,  supreme  also. 

The  scale  of  power  was  thus  left  to  incline  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 

The  steps,  by  which  the  power  of  the  Pope  became  a  despotism  so  com- 
plete, are  marked  with  sufficient  minuteness  by  Giannone,  in  his  ecclesiasti- 
cal chapters,  particularly  in  his  fifth  chapter  of  his  nineteenth  book,  which 
will  supply  adequate  information. 

The  first  great  point  was  to  exempt  the  clergy  from  secular  jurisdiction, 
and  this  was  at  length  accomplished. 


NOTES.  Ill 

The  second,  to  include  within  the  description  of  clergy  all,  who  had 
ever  received  the  tonsure. 

The  third,  to  draw  all  causes  within  their  jurisdiction  which  involved  any 
breach  of  faith :  for  where  there  was  a  breach  of  faith,  there  was  sin,  and 
therefore  the  soul  was  concerned,  and  therefore  the  church. 

The  fourth,  to  bring  all  testaments  within  their  jurisdiction;  for  testa- 
ments, it  seems,  were  a  matter  of  conscience :  add  to  this,  that  the  testator 
was  to  be  buried  by  the  church,  and  his  soul  to  be  put  into  a  state  of  rest  and 
quiet;  his  movables  were  therefore  to  be  seized,  in  the  first  place,  to  put 
the  church  into  a  state  of  rest  and  quiet  also.  He  might,  too,  have  made 
bequests  to  the  church,  a  point  which  the  church  were  therefore  to  ascertain. 

Again,  —  if  among  the  litigants  there  was  a  clergyman,  the  cause  was  to 
be  referred  to  the  church. 

Then  the  church  was  to  be  appealed  to  if  the  civil  lawyers  disagreed,  a 
circumstance  which  might  certainly  happen:  for  the  Jews,  in  a  similar  case, 
had  always,  it  was  observed,  applied  to  the  Levites. 

Then  they  were  to  supply  the  defects  of  negligence  and  partiality  in  the 
secular  judges. 

Then  they  were  to  take  cognizance  of  all  causes,  where  the  poor  and 
strangers,  where  wards  and  widows,  were  concerned ;  for  of  such  they  con- 
sidered themselves  as  protectors. 

.Next,  they  insisted  that  many  crimes,  such  as  bigamy  and  usury,  were  not 
only,  in  strictness,  of  an  ecclesiastical  nature,  but  were  at  least  liable  to  both 
jurisdictions,  the  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal :  and,  therefore,  they  took  care 
to  exert  proper  speed,  and  arrive  at  the  offender  first. 

Lastly,  all  cases  where  matrimony  was  concerned  :  for  matrimony  was  a 
sacrament. 

All  this  was  accompanied  by  the  tribunal  of  the  inquisition,  which  was 
established  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  which  originated  in  a  natural,  but 
most  unfortunate  mistake,  that  heresy  was  a  crime  that  must  at  all  events 
be  prevented  aud  punished.  The  civil  power,  before  the  appearance  of  the 
inquisition,  had  proceeded  to  fine,  imprisonment,  and,  at  last,  death  ;  so 
rapid  is  the  dreadful  march  of  intolerance  ! 

But  when  the  preaching  friars,  and  the  friars  minores,  the  Dominican  and 
Franciscan  orders  had  sprung  up,  the  Dominicans  were  soon  ready  to  ex- 
ecute any  commission  of  inquiry  into  heresy  ;  and  the  tribunal  of  the  inqui- 
sition was  immediately  in  a  state  of  activity,  and  arrayed  in  all  its  tremendous 
apparatus  of  familiars,  inquisitors,  torturers,  and  executioners. 

Finally,  it  was  not  only  in  spiritual  but  temporal  matters  that  the  ecclesi- 
astical power  was  to  be  supreme. 

Princes  were  to  be  summoned  to  Rome  to  purge  themselves  of  their 
crimes.  The  Pope  himself  was  to  be  the  lord  of  the  universe. 

The  means,  by  which  such  a  system  of  jurisdiction  was  extended  and 
established,  appear  to  have  been  the  different  processes  of  spiritual  punish- 
ment, ending  at  last  in  total  excommunication ;  a  sentence,  of  the  horrors  of 
which,  no  one  now  can  have  the  slightest  conception. 


112  NOTES. 


XXIII. 

Is  Dryden's  play  of  Sebastian,  act  ii.  scene  1,  may  be  found  the  image 
applied  by  Hume  to  the  clergy  of  every  age  and  description.  Dorax  to  the 
Mufti,— 

"  Content  you  with  monopolizing  heaven, 
And  let  this  little  hanging  ball  alone  ; 
For,  give  ye  but  a  foot  of  conscience  there, 
And  you,  like  Archimedes,  toss  the  globe." 

The  image  is  not  too  strong  when  applied  to  the  clergy  of  the  dark  ages. 
Hume  was  a  reader  of  Dryden's  plays,  and  probably  borrowed  in  this 
instance,  but  without  acknowledgment. 

XXIV. 

WHEN  Charlemagne  was  no  more,  the  Saxons  rushed  out  in  every  direc- 
tion, as  did  afterwards  the  Danes  and  Normans ;  and  they  were  able,  from 
the  almost  incredible  lightness  of  their  vessels,  their  desperate  seamanship 
and  hardy  courage,  to  be  a  more  dreadful  torment  to  the  peaceful  inhabitants 
of  Europe,  than  even  the  northern  conquerors  themselves  had  been.  They 
established  themselves  in  Sicily,  a  large  division  of  France,  in  England,  &c. 
&c. 

XXV. 

IN  the  history  of  the  free  and  commercial  cities,  there  are  various  traits  of 
the  operations  of  the  principle  of  utility. 

XXVI. 

SOME  idea  must  be  formed  by  the  student  of  a  very  fatiguing  portion  of 
history.  The  times  of  the  Hanseatic  league,  the  struggles  of  the  emperors 
and  popes,  &c.  &c.  Pfeffel  may  be  consulted,  and  Gibbon.  The  student, 
through  all  the  different  dynasties  noted  down  in  Pfeffel,  must  mark  well 
the  relative  power  and  pretensions  of  the  popes  and  emperors. 

The  effort  of  the  see  to  deprive  the  emperors  of  the  nomination  of  the 
vacant  benefices,  to  transfer  to  the  holy  see  the  election  even  of  the  emperor 
himself,  &c.  &c. 

Gregory  the  Seventh  was  the  great  hero  of  this  species  of  warfare  against 
the  improvement  and  happiness  of  society.  Excommunication  was  the  great 
engine  by  which  the  papal  see  performed  its  wonders.  The  popes,  even 
while  arrogating  to  themselves  the  right  of  dethroning  emperors,  had  the 
hardiness  to  reason,  —  "  Officii  nostri  est  regem  investire,  —  ergo  quern 
meritum  investimus,  immeritum  quare  non  divestimus." 

It  is  the  misery  of  mankind  that  there  is  no  cause  so  unreasonable,  for 
which  something  like  reasoning  may  not  be  produced. 

It  is  thus  that  men  originally  good  are  often  led  step  by  step  into  serious 
faults  ;  and  that  bad  men  can  affect  to  palliate  and  even  convert  their  crimes 
into  virtues. 

In  the  course  of  this  struggle,  Conrad,  king  of  the  Romans,  and  heir  to 
the  emperor,  appeared  against  him  in  arms. 


NOTES.  113 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  unhappy  father  appealed  to  the  rights  of  his  crown, 
and  the  common  feelings  of  human  nature.  "  I  acknowledge  not,"  said  this 
abominable  son,  "  either  for  my  emperor  or  father,  one,  who  is  excommuni- 
cated." 

XXVII. 

THE  reign  of  Frederick  the  Second  should  be  particularly  noticed,  as  it 
exhibits  the  lengthened  and  intrepid  resistance  of  a  most  accomplished  and 
able  prince  to  the  papal  see. 

Innocent,  when  pope,  was  no  longer  his  friend.  The  official  character,  as 
usual,  triumphed  over  the  natural  feelings  of  the  man. 

XXVIII. 

THE  towns  and  cities,  the  great  hope  of  mankind  at  this  period,  acquired 
freedom  and  importance,  gradually  and  insensibly. 

By  Henry  the  Fifth  and  Lothaire  they  were  converted  each  into  a  sort  of 
little  republic,  and  their  number  was  multiplied.  The  artisans  were  enfran- 
chised, &c.  &c.,  till  men,  who  had  once  been  objects  of  sale  and  transfer, 
emerged  at  length  from  their  unnatural  degradation. 

XXIX. 

FREDERICK  was  a  great  patron  of  the  cities  of  the  empire. 

It  is  a  trait  of  these  times,  that  Frederick,  even  in  the  cities  he  patronized, 
exercised  the  power  of  uniting  in  marriage,  as  he  pleased,  the  children  of  the 
principal  citizens. 

XXX. 

GIBBON  has  made  several  observations  on  the  different  emperors  of  these 
different  dynasties, and  on  their  contests  in  Italy.  Giannone  should  likewise 
be  consulted.  His  work  is  a  history  of  Naples ;  but  many  parts  may  be  se- 
lected of  great  general  interest  and  importance. 

The  observations  of  Pfeffel,  on  the  great  interregnum  of  twenty-three 
years  between  Frederick  the  Second  and  Rodolph,  should  be  particularly  con- 
sidered. 

XXXI. 

THE  most  extraordinary  man  of  his  age  was  Louis  the  Ninth  (St.  Louis), 
uniting  the  magnanimity  of  the  hero  and  the  simplicity  of  the  child. 

The  student  can  scarcely  be  excused,  if  he  does  not  turn  aside  to  look  at 
the  account  of  his  expedition  given  by  Joinville,  especially  as  Mr.  Johnes  has 
so  laudably  employed  himself  in  rendering  it  accessible  to  every  reader,  by  a 
new  translation,  accompanied  by  extracts  from  the  notes  and  dissertations  of 
the  indefatigable  Du  Cange.  The  knights,  the  monarch,  and  their  follow- 
ers, are  shown  in  the  faithful  mirror  of  their  ordinary  conduct.  The  picture 
is  the  picture  of  ancient  manners  and  opinions. 

The  Lord  de  Joinville  is  no  philosopher,  but  he  incidentally  supplies  mate- 
rials to  those  who  are. 

"  The  king,"  says  he, lt  summoned-  all  the  barons  to  Paris  to  renew  their 
VOL.  I.  15 


114  NOTES. 

oath  of  fealty  and  homage  ;  but  I,"  says  Joinville,  "  who  was  not  his  man, 
would  not  take  the  oath." 

This  passage  has  been  often  quoted,  to  show  that  the  under-vassals  owed 
fidelity  and  homage  to  their  own  immediate  lords  only  and  exclusively,  an  im- 
portant distinction,  very  favorable  to  disorder,  &c. 

XXXII. 

Is  another  passage,  notice  is  taken  of  what  were  called  "  the  pleadings  at 
the  gate  " ;  and  the  second  dissertation  from  Du  Cange,  quoted  by  Mr.  Johnes, 
exhibits  concisely  the  natural  progress  of  jurisprudence,  from  the  first  audi- 
ence of  complaints  by  the  kings  themselves,  to  the  dispensation  of  justice  by 
their  governors  and  deputies ;  the  establishment  of  courts  of  justice  in  their 
palaces  ;  and,  lastly,  the  sub-division  of  the  parliament,  or  great  court  of  jus- 
tice, into  different  courts  or  chambers. 

Again,  in  the  instructions  of  St.  Louis  to  his  son,  given  by  Joinville,  the 
king  says,  "  Maintain  such  liberties  and  franchises  as  thy  ancestors  have 
done  ;  for,  by  the  riches  and  power  of  thy  principal  towns,  thy  enemies  will 
be  afraid  of  affronting  or  attacking  thee,  more  especially  thy  equals,  —  the 
barons  or  such  like." 

These  last  words  illustrate  and  enforce  the  reasonings  of  philosophical  wri- 
ters on  these  times. 

In  the  narrative  of  Joinville  we  see  the  readiness  and  confidence  with  which 
the  crusaders  converted  every  operation  of  the  general  laws  of  the  Deity  into 
marks  of  the  particular  interference  of  Heaven. 

This  has  always  been  one  of  the  characteristics  of  enthusiasm. 


LECTURE  V. 

ENGLAND. 

I  HAVE  hitherto  said  nothing  of  England.  Yet  has  England 
a  dearer  claim  on  our  curiosity  and  attention,  and  its  history, 
and  more  particularly  its  constitutional  history,  must  be  consid- 
ered with  more  diligence  and  patience,  than  can  possibly  be 
directed  to  those  of  any  other  country. 

The  first  authentic  notice  which  we  have  of  the  inhabitants 
of  this  island,  is  honorable  to  their  memory  :  they  were  at- 
tacked by  the  first  man  of  the  first  nation  then  in  the  world  ; 
they  resisted,  and  were  not  subdued.  The  account  is  given 
by  Caesar  himself,  and  what  Caesar  delivers  to  posterity,  how- 
ever short,  cannot  but  be  deserving  of  our  observation. 

Further  information  with  respect  to  the  Britons  may  be 
afterwards  collected  from  Suetonius ;  and  the  gradual  suc- 
cesses of  the  Roman  commanders  will  be  found  in  Tacitus. 
In  his  life  of  Agricola  the  subject  is  closed  ;  all  further  contest 
is  at  an  end.  But  the  speech,  which  is  there  attributed  to 
Galgacus,  when  once  read,  can  never  be  forgotten  :  the  great 
historian  has  here  displayed  the  rare  merit  of  a  mind  elevated 
in  the  cause  of  justice  above  every  domestic  partiality  and 
national  prejudice.  When  he  exhibits  the  cause  which  called 
the  Caledonians  to  the  field,  he  is  no  longer  the  son-in-law  of 
the  Roman  general,  nor  the  countryman  of  the  Roman  people ; 
he  is  the  assertor  of  all  the  generous  principles  of  our  nature  ; 
he  is  the  protector  of  humanity,  and  he  discharges  with  fidelity 
and  spirit  the  noble  office,  the  great  duty  of  the  historian, 
by  exhibiting  to  our  sympathy  the  wrongs  of  unoffending 
freedom. 

The  Romans  were  indeed  successful,  and  the  independence 
of  Britain  was  no  more.  But  the  sentiments  which  must 
have  animated  these  last  defenders  of  their  country  still 


116  LECTURE  V. 

breathe  in  the  immortal  pages  of  this  celebrated  writer  ;  and 
the  virtues  of  the  Caledonians  are  now  for  ever  united  to  the 
taste  and  feelings  of  mankind. 

Another  melancholy  scene  succeeds.  The  Romans  retire 
from  the  island,  and  the  Britons,  deprived  of  their  protection, 
are  insulted  and  overpowered  by  every  invader.  The  Romans 
had  long  inured  them  to  a  sense  of  inferiority.  The  country 
had  been  partly  civilized  and  improved,  but  the  mind  of  the 
country  had  been  destroyed.  The  Britons  had  lost  the  rude 
virtues  of  barbarians,  but  had  not  acquired  that  sense  of  honor 
and  consciousness  of  political  happiness,  which  do  more  than 
supply  their  place  in  the  character  of  civilized  man.  They  had 
not  felt  the  influence  of  a  government  which  themselves  could 
share.  They  were  unable  to  make  head  against  their  enemies  ; 
and  they  exhibited  to  the  world  that  lesson,  which  has  been  so 
often  repeated,  that  a  country  can  never  be  defended  by  a  pop- 
ulation that  has  been,  on  whatever  account,  degraded  ;  that 
they  who  are  to  resist  an  invader  must  first  be  moulded,  by 
equal  laws  and  the  benefits  of  a  free  government,  into  a  due 
sense  of  national  pride  and  individual  importance  ;  and  that  men 
cannot  be  formed  into  heroes  on  the  principles  of  suspicion  and 
injustice. 

It  is  true,  that  the  Britons  made  a  better  resistance  to  their 
invaders  than  could  have  been  expected.  There  may  be  much 
exaggeration  and  vague  lamentation,  as  Mr.  Turner  supposes, 
in  the  representations  of  Gildas,  on  which  Bede,  and  after  him 
our  historian  Hume,  relied  ;  but  the  independence  of  the  island 
must  at  last  have  been  lost,  from  the  destructive  effect  of  such 
general  principles  as  I  have  stated. 

The  next  era  in  our  history  exhibits  the  total  subjugation  of 
Britain  by  the  Angles,  Jutes,  and  Saxons.  These  were 
northern  nations  ;  and  we  are  thus  brought,  with  respect  to 
England,  exactly  to  the  same  point  from  whence  we  set  out 
in  examining  the  history  of  Europe,  the  conquest  of  the 
northern  nations. 

Again.  We  must  observe  the  particular  circumstances  of 
the  Norman  Conquest  which  followed.  This  conquest  gave 
occasion  to  the  establishment  of  the  feudal  system  in  all  its 
rigors.  The  pope  had  also  extended  his  empire  to  this 
remote  island.  So  that  in  England,  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe, 


ENGLAND.  117 

we  have  the  feudal  system  and  the  papal  power  ;  and  these 
were,  in  the  instance  of  our  own  country,  as  in  the  rest  of 
Europe,  (without  stopping  to  notice  some  fortunate  peculiari- 
ties in  our  case,  or  some  advantages  concomitant  with  these 
evils,)  the  great  impediments  to  the  improvement  of  human 
happiness. 

The  subject  of  English  history  now  lies  before  us,  from  the 
expulsion  of  the  Romans  to  the  time  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

I  cannot  occupy  you  in  listening  here  to  such  information 
as  I  might  collect  for  you  from  books.  You  must  read  the 
books.  I  will  observe  upon  them,  and  upon  the  subject  be- 
fore us,  but  I  can  do  no  more.  The  whole  subject  may  be 
evidently  distinguished  into  two  great  divisions. 

The  fate  and  fortunes  of  the  different  monarchs,  barons, 
and  remarkable  men  that  appear  in  our  annals. 

And  the  fate  and  fortunes  of  the  constitution  of  England. 

The  latter  is  the  great  subject  for  you  to  study.  The  first, 
indeed,  you  ought  to  know,  and  may  readily  know  ;  but  the 
second  not  so  readily  ;  the  first  is  chiefly  of  importance,  as 
connected  with  the  latter.  In  a  word,  there  are  before  you 
the  facts  of  the  history,  and  the  philosophy  of  the  history. 
You  will  soon  learn  the  one,  but  you  must  endeavour  to  un- 
derstand the  other. 

Having  thus  given  you  my  general  notion  of  what  you  are 
to  attempt  to  do,  I  will  describe  to  you  the  best  and  shortest 
means  you  can  use  for  the  purpose.  You  must  read,  then, 
and  compare  Hume  and  Rapin,  and  study  Millar  on  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution.  Bear  away,  then,  this  general  impression 
from  this  lecture,  that  it  is  the  constitutional  history  of  your 
country  which  is  the  great  subject  before  you,  and  that  Hume, 
Rapin,  and  Millar  are  to  be  your  authors. 

That  the  subject  cannot  be  contracted  for  you  into  any 
shorter  compass  thai)  this  ;  but  to  these,  which  I  originally 
mentioned,  I  must  now  add  the  invaluable  History  of  Mr. 
Hallam,  and  that  no  one  who  has  been  admitted  to  the  bene- 
fits of  a  regular  education,  can  be  pardoned  if  he  do  not  exert 
himself  at  least  to  this  extent. 

But  when  England  is  the  subject,  most  of  you  may  be  dis- 
posed to  take  any  pains,  that  can  be  thought  necessary,  to 
inform  yourselves  of  its  constitutional  history  ;  and  it  is  to 


118  LECTURE  V. 

those,  therefore,  that  I  shall  now,  for  some  time,  address 
myself;  to  those  who  are  ready  to  study  the  constitutional 
history  of  their  country  more  thoroughly. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  Priestley's  Lectures,  and  Nichol- 
son's Historical  Library,  will  give  you  an  account  of  all  books 
and  sources  of  information  belonging  to  English  history. 

Of  the  Saxon  law,  what  now  can  be  known  has  been  col- 
lected by  different  antiquaries,  and  edited  more  particularly 
by  Wilkins. 

You  may  also  estimate  this  part  of  the  subject  from  the 
first  appendix  of  Hume.  This  appendix  will  be  sufficient  for 
the  general  reader. 

Mr.  Turner  has  published  some  volumes  containing  many 
particulars  which  the  student  will  not  readily  find  elsewhere, 
and  he  will,  from  the  text  and  from  the  notes,  sufficiently 
comprehend  what  is  the  knowledge,  which  the  study  of  the 
Saxon  language  and  Saxon  antiquities  would  furnish  him 
with. 

Mr.  Turner  is  often  capable  of  affording  his  reader  valuable 
topics  of  reflection  ;  but,  though  apparently  a  most  patient 
antiquary,  his  imagination  is  so  active,  that  his  style  is  un- 
expectedly loaded  with  metaphors,  to  a  degree  that  is  not 
only  inconsistent  with  historic  composition,  but  with  all  com- 
position. Very  extensive  reading  is  displayed  ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  work  may  be  consulted  with  advantage.  There  is 
nothing  said  of  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  a  strange 
omission  ;  nor  of  the  rise  of  the  English  House  of  Commons, 
though  Mr.  Turner  evidently  conceives  that  the  commons 
formed  no  part  of  the  Wittena  Gemote. 

Mr.  Turner  has,  since  I  wrote  this  paragraph,  published 
three  quarto  volumes  on  the  English  history,  from  William 
the  First  to  Henry  the  Eighth.  He  is  an  antiquary,  as  I 
have  mentioned,  and  whatever  a  man,  who  looks  into  original 
records,  publishes,  must  be  more  or  less  of  importance.  Mr. 
Turner  often  gives  his  reader  the  impression  of  an  amiable 
man,  rather  than  one  of  a  very  superior  understanding  ;  yet 
many  curious  particulars  may  be  collected,  and  much  instruc- 
tion may  be  derived  from  his  learned  and  often  amusing 
work. 

This  lecture  was  drawn  up  many  years  ago,  in  the  years 


ENGLAND.  119 

1807  and  1808.  I  have  now,  therefore,  to  mention  to  you 
also  the  eighth  chapter  of  Mr.  Hallam's  work  on  the  Middle 
Ages.  This  chapter  refers  entirely  to  the  English  constitu- 
tion, into  the  history  of  which  it  enters  with  great  learning 
and  ability. 

You  must  come  to  no  decision  on  any  point  connected 
with  this  subject,  without  first  turning  to  this  chapter  of 
Mr.  Hallam.  He  thinks  for  himself ;  and  he  is  a  critic  and 
examiner  of  the  labors  of  those,  who  have  gone  before. 
Since  this  lecture  was  written,  his  Constitutional  History 
has  also  appeared ;  a  work,  as  I  have  already  said,  quite 
invaluable. 

Dr.  Lingard  has  lately  published  a  History  of  England  ; 
and  we  have  now,  therefore,  the  views  and  reasonings  of 
those,  who  are  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion, 
presented  to  us  by  a  writer  of  great  controversial  ability. 
Dr.  Lingard  also  consults  records,  and  judges  for  himself, 
and  his  book  must  therefore  be  always  referred  to  on  every 
occasion  of  importance.  He  tells  the  story  of  England  in  too 
cold  a  manner,  and  it  is  truly  the  Roman  Catholic  History  of 
England ;  but  his  work  is  interesting,  because  the  reader 
knows  that  the  writer  is  not  only  an  able  writer,  but  a  man 
of  research  and  of  antiquarian  learning,  and  it  therefore  never 
can  be  conjectured  beforehand,  what  may  be  the  information 
which  he  will  produce,  nor  the  sentiments  that  he  will  adopt. 
He  sometimes  differs  with  his  predecessors,  even  on  general 
subjects,  and  not  always  with  good  reason. 

I  must  now,  however,  mention  to  you  the  three  octavo  vol- 
umes on  English  History  that  were  drawn  up  by  Sir  James 
Mackintosh,  for  Dr.  Lardner.  There  is  little  pretension  in 
the  appearance  of  these  volumes  ;  do  not  be  deceived  by  this 
circumstance  ;  they  are  full  of  weighty  matter,  and  are  every- 
where marked  by  paragraphs  of  comprehensive  thought  and 
sound  philosophy,  political  and  moral  ;  they  are  well  worthy 
their  distinguished  author.  The  sentences  are  now  and  then 
overcharged  with  reflection,  so  as  to  become  obscure,  particu- 
larly in  the  first  volume.  But  do  not  be  deterred  by  a  fault, 
that  too  naturally  resulted  from  the  richly  stored  and  highly 
metaphysical  mind  of  this  valuable  writer. 

You  may  easily  consult  the  monkish  writers  ;  you  will  find 


120  LECTURE  V. 

them  edited  in  a  form  by  no  means  repulsive,  u  Rerum  Angli- 
carum  Scriptores  decem,"  &c. 

You  will  not  probably  turn  to  read  works  of  this  kind  in 
any  very  regular  manner  ;  but  I  would  advise  you  to  consult 
them  at  particular  periods  of  our  history  ;  periods,  where 
their  representations  are  likely  to  be  instructive.  When  pop- 
ular commotions,  for  instance,  occur  ;  changes  of  the  govern- 
ment ;  any  transaction  that  may  be  connected  with  general 
principles. 

You  may  remember  with  what  effect  an  allusion  is  made 
to  the  old  historians,  Knyghton  and  Walsingham,  by  Mr. 
Burke,  when  he  meant  to  show  that  all  the  modern  principles 
of  the  revolutionary  school  of  France  were  but  of  the  same 
nature  with  the  vulgar  jargon  of  John  Ball  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  the  Second.  I  allude  to  his  note  in  the  Appeal  from 
the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs. 

A  good  notion  of  the  early  constitutional  history  of  Eng- 
land may  be  collected  from  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Rec- 
ords, which  ought  by  all  means  to  be  consulted  ;  it  has  been 
edited  by  Prynne,  whose  preface  should  be  perused.  The 
reader  is  furnished  with  an  index  at  the  end,  which  will  point 
out  to  him  a  variety  of  topics,  well  fitted  to  excite  his  curiosi- 
ty ;  and  he  may  thus  acquire,  by  pursuing  the  references, 
most  of  the  benefit  which  the  book  can  render  him,  in  a  very 
easy  and  expeditious  manner  ;  it  is  not,  however,  always  a 
sufficient  representation  of  the  records,  which  it  indeed  only 
professes  to  abridge. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  records  are  consulted  often  to 
determine  points  of  difficulty  ;  abridgments  cannot  then  be 
satisfactory.  Cotton  is  censured  as  inadequate,  sometimes  as 
inaccurate  ;  but  the  work  is  an  abridgment.  Omission  is  not 
necessarily  inaccuracy,  though  it  has  always  a  tendency  to 
be  so,  and  may  sometimes  operate  as  if  it  were.  Cotton  is  of 
course  no  authority  in  Westminster  Hall  or  parliament. 

Brady's  History,  Tyrrell's,  and  Carte's,  may  be  consulted, 
and  the  Parliamentary  History  ;  but  as  the  latter  work,  and 
the  proper  continuations  of  it,  are  not  always,  at  least  not 
cheaply,  to  be  procured,  you  may  refer  to  a  very  adequate 
selection  from  them,  that  has  been  published  by  Cobbett,  or 
rather  by  Hansard,  and  that  forms  the  volumes  of  his  parlia- 


ENGLAND.  121 

mentary  history  ;  the  preface  to  each  of  which  volumes  will 
always  afford  the  reader  all  the  necessary  information  respect- 
ing such  original  works,  as  can  now  be  resorted  to. 

It  is  totally  impossible  to  convey  the  impression  which  is 
given  by  these  original  documents  in  any  words  but  their 
own  ;  nothing  can  be  more  curious  and  striking  than  their 
language  to  our  modern  ears,  particularly  where  the  Commons 
are  mentioned  ;  when  we  consider  what,  very  happily  for  the 
community,  that  assembly  now  is,  it  is  perfectly  amusing  to 
observe  the  submissive  approaches,  which  they  long  made,  not 
only  to  the  king,  but  to  the  lords  and  prelates  ;  their  alarm, 
their  total  despondency,  when  they  see  any  tax  impending  over 
them. 

It  is  in  these  original  documents  that  their  early  insignifi- 
cance, and  the  slow,  but  accelerated  growth  of  their  power, 
can  best  be  seen  ;  and  how  idle  is  the  declamation  which 
would  refer  us  to  these  times,  as  the  best  times  of  our  parlia- 
ments. Most  of  the  valuable  privileges,  which  the  House  of 
Commons  enjoys,  most  of  the  important  offices  which  that 
house  now  discharges  for  the  community,  may  be  there  traced 
up  to  all  their  rude  beginnings  :  sometimes  visible  in  the 
shape  of  pretensions  and  assumptions,  sometimes  of  claims 
and  rights,  and  all  or  any  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  the 
right  to  give  away  their  own  and  the  public  money,  waived 
or  asserted,  or  modified  according  to  the  circumstances  of 
their  situation.  So  much  has  liberty  owed  to  perseverance, 
and  to  the  vigilant  improvement  of  opportunity  ;  not  to  any 
original  contract  or  adjustment  between  the  elementary  powers 
of  the  constitution,  the  monarch,  the  aristocracy,  and  the  com- 
monalty. 

Much  of  this  sort  of  information,  and  of  every  other  his- 
torical information,  may  be  found  in  the  history  of  Dr.  Henry  ; 
but  the  same  facts,  when  collected  and  printed  in  a  modern 
dress,  properly  arranged,  and  to  be  read  without  difficulty, 
as  they  are  in  the  work  of  Dr.  Henry,  no  longer  excite  the 
same  reflection,  nor  obtain  the  same  possession  of  the  memory 
which  they  do,  when  seen  in  something  like  their  native 
garb,  in  their  proper  place,  and  in  all  the  simplicity,  singu- 
larity, and  quaintness  which  belong  to  them. 

I  do  not  say  that  there  will  be  no   labor   in   referring   to 

VOL.  i.  16 


122  LECTURE  V. 

original  authorities,  but  I  say  that  the  labor  will  be  rewarded  ; 
and  that  unless  such  diligence  be  exercised,  no  conclusion  can 
safely  be  drawn,  in  any  particular  case,  from  the  supposed  facts 
of  our  constitutional  history.  And  this  is  the  more  necessary, 
because,  from  the  very  nature  of  a  mixed  government  and  the 
very  nature  of  the  human  mind,  historians  and  philosophers  are 
affected  by  different  feelings,  and  give  different  representations 
of  the  same  periods  ;  and  every  student  must  refer  to  authori- 
ties and  judge  for  himself. 

Turn,  for  instance,  to  the  history  of  Hume.  We  are  scarce- 
ly entered  upon  the  work  and  referred  to  the  notes,  before  we 
see  the  symptoms  of  some  contrariety  of  opinion  between  the 
historian  and  other  writers,  with  respect  to  the  original  nature 
of  our  constitution.  If  we  have  recourse  to  the  authors  whom 
he  quotes  or  alludes  to,  the  shades  of  controversy  soon  thicken 
around  us,  and  we  perceive  that  the  same  dispute  exists  among 
our  own  writers  that  will  be  found  among  the  historians  and 
antiquaries  of  the  French  nation  ;  between  those  who  insist 
upon  the  popular,  and  those  who  contend  for  the  aristocratic 
and  monarchical  nature  of  the  original  constitutions  and  govern- 
ments of  Europe. 

Controversies  of  this  kind  have  arisen,  not  only  from  the 
curious  and  disputable  nature  of  these  topics,  but  from  a 
difference  of  sentiment,  which  has  always  existed  among  the 
writers  and  reasoners  that  have  lived  under  the  mixed  govern- 
ments of  Europe  ;  secretly  or  avowedly  they  have  always 
fallen  into  two  divisions,  —  those  who  think  the  interests  of 
the  community  are  best  served  by  favoring  the  monarchical 
part  of  a  constitution,  and  those  who  think  the  same  end  is 
best  attained  by  inclining  to  its  popular  privileges.  The 
result  has  been,  that  writers  of  the  first  description  have  been 
eager  to  show  that  the  prerogatives  of  the  monarch  were  from 
the  earliest  times  predominant ;  and  that  those  of  the  last 
description  have  been  equally  earnest  to  prove  that  all  power, 
not  only  in  theory,  but  in  fact,  was  first  derived  from  the 
people. 

Such  discussions  may  be  thought  by  many  little  more  than 
the  natural,  though  unimportant,  occupation  of  speculative 
writers  and  antiquaries ;  for  the  real  question  (it  will  be 
said)  must  always  be,  by  what  form  of  government  the  hap- 


ENGLAND.  123 

piness  of  the  community  is  best  secured,  —  not  what  was  in 
fact  the  form  that  happened  to  exist  among  our  ancestors  a 
thousand  years  ago  ;  their  mistakes  or  misfortunes  can  be  no 
rule  or  obligation  to  us  ;  we  may  emulate  or  avoid  their  ex- 
ample, but  cannot  be  bound  by  their  authority. 

All  this  must  be  admitted,  yet  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  affairs  of  men  are  not  disposed  of  by  the  rules  of  logic  or 
the  abstract  truths  of  reasoning  ;  these  may  remain  the  same, 
and  may  always  exhibit  to  the  monarch  and  to  the  people,  to 
the  courtier  and  the  patriot,  those  principles  and  maxims, 
which  are  best  fitted  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  com- 
munity. Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  are,  however,  likely  to 
see  such  truths  very  clearly,  or  to  examine  them  very  accu- 
rately. It  is  by  a  certain  loose  and  coarse  mixture  of  right  and 
wrong  in  the  reasoning,  and  of  selfishness  and  generosity  in  the 
intention,  that  the  practical  politics  of  mankind  are  carried  on 
according  to  the  varying  circumstances  of  the  case  ;  not  only, 
therefore,  are  the  reasonings  of  philosophy  produced,  but  argu- 
ments are  urged,  drawn  from  precedent  and  ancient  usage, 
which  thus  appear  to  moderate,  as  it  were,  between  the  con- 
tending parties,  and  to  be  unaffected  by  the  heats  and  prejudices 
of  the  moment.  It  seems,  for  example,  more  reasonable  to 
insist  upon  privileges  which  have  been  before  enjoyed,  more 
reasonable  to  maintain  prerogatives  which  were  originally  exer- 
cised. Topics  of  this  nature,  which  can  in  no  respect  be 
slighted  by  any  sound  philosopher,  much  the  contrary,  are  per- 
fectly adapted  to  the  loose,  sweeping,  and  often  irrational 
decisions  of  the  generality  of  mankind  ;  and,  therefore,  the 
discussions  of  antiquaries  and  philosophic  historians,  with 
respect  to  the  original  state  of  prerogative  and  privilege,  can 
never  be  without  their  interest  and  importance.  In  the  practi- 
cal politics  of  mankind,  usage,  prescription,  custom,  are  every 
thing,  or  nearly  so  ;  but,  in  this  country,  such  discussions  are 
fitted  to  excite  a  more  than  ordinary  degree  of  interest.  The 
language  of  the  statesmen  and  patriots,  to  whom  we  are  so 
much  indebted  for  our  constitution,  has  always  been,  that  they 
claimed  their  undoubted  rights  and  privileges,  their  ancient 
franchises,  the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  land,  and  their  imme- 
morial customs.  One  monarch  has  been  obliged  to  capitulate 
with  his  subjects,  and  acknowledge  their  immunities  and 


124  LECTURE  V. 

franchises  formally  by  charter  ;  one  has  perished  on  a  scaffold  ; 
another  been  exiled  from  the  throne.  Revolutions  and  a  civil 
war  have  marked  the  influence  of  opposite  opinions  with  respect 
to  the  popular  nature  of  our  constitution.  These  dreadful  and 
perilous  scenes  could  not  fail  to  transmit  this  original  division 
of  sentiment  to  us,  their  posterity.  The  distinction  between 
those  who  incline  to  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution  and 
those  who  incline  to  the  monarchical,  exists  to  this  hour,  and 
can  only  cease  with  the  constitution  itself. 

The  great  leading  idea  which  should  be  formed  of  our  con- 
stitutional history  is,  that  there  has  always  been  a  constant 
struggle  between  prerogative  and  privilege. 

Open,  for  instance,  a  volume  of  Hume,  in  any  reign  after 
the  House  of  Commons  had  obtained  an  existence,  —  any  ex- 
tract may  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  whole,  —  it  will  instantly 
be  seen  that  the  points  at  issue  between  the  crown  and  the 
subject  were  always  nearly  the  same  (precisely  the  same  in 
principle,)  from  the  earliest  struggles  of  the  barons,  down  to 
the  Revolution  in  1688. 

Take,  for  example,  a  paragraph  in  his  reign  of  Edward  the 
Third,  page  490,  8vo  : — 

"  They  mistake,  indeed,  very  much,"  says  he,  "the  genius 
of  this  reign  (of  Edward  the  Third,)  who  imagine  that  it  was 
not  extremely  arbitrary.  All  the  high  prerogatives  of  the  crown 
were  to  the  full  exerted  in  it  ;  but  what  gave  some  consola- 
tion, and  promised  in  time  some  relief  to  the  people,  they 
were  always  complained  of  by  the  Commons  ;  such  as  the 
dispensing  power,  the  extension  of  the  forests,  erecting  monop- 
olies, exacting  loans,  stopping  justice  by  particular  warrants, 
the  renewal  of  the  commission  of  trailbaton,  pressing  men 
and  ships  into  the  public  service,  levying  arbitrary  and  exor- 
bitant fines,  extending  the  authority  of  the  privy  council  or 
star-chamber  to  the  decision  of  private  causes,  enlarging  the 
power  of  the  mareschal's  and  other  arbitrary  courts,  imprisoning 
members  for  freedom  of  speech  in  parliament,  obliging  people, 
without  any  rule,  to  send  recruits  of  men-at-arms,  archers,  and 
hoblers  to  the  army." 

Now,  if  the  references  of  Mr.  Hume  are  consulted,  it  will 
be  found,  as  he  asserts,  that  traces  of  such  arbitrary  exercises 
of  power  appear  on  our  records. 


ENGLAND.  125 

But,  says  Mr.  Hume,  they  were  always  complained  of  by 
the  Commons. 

On  consulting  the  reference,  this,  too,  will  be  found  to  be 
the  case. 

And  here,  then,  we  have  before  us  a  picture  of  the  whole 
subject,  —  a  continued  struggle  between  perogative  and  privi- 
lege, and  of  the  same  nature  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third, 
as  afterwards  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  and  even  of 
James  the  Second. 

Grievances  like  these  continually  occurred  from  the  irregu- 
lar nature  of  government  and  society  in  such  barbarous  times  ; 
but  the  natural  feelings  of  mankind,  operating  upon  the  example 
transmitted  by  more  ancient  times,  continually  revived  the  spirit 
of  resistance.  This  virtuous  spirit  found  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, a  regular  and  legal  organ  through  which  the  rights  of  the 
community  could  be  asserted  ;  and  this  is  the  struggle  and  this 
the  merit  of  our  ancestors, — this  the  inherited  duty  (if  neces- 
sary) of  ourselves. 

Now,  such  being  the  real  picture  of  our  constitutional  history, 
the  student  is  in  the  next  place  to  be  reminded  of  what  we  have 
already  stated  to  him,  and  must,  in  the  course  of  these  lectures 
for  ever  repeat,  the  natural  divisions,  not  only  of  mankind,  but 
of  philosophers,  on  political  subjects  ;  and  the  manner  in  which 
they  separate  into  two  classes  :  those,  for  instance,  who  are 
anxious,  first  and  principally  for  the  prerogative  of  the  crown  ; 
and  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  are  zealous  first  and  princi- 
pally, for  the  privileges  of  the  people. 

It  may  be  very  true,  that,  could  the  selfishness  and  the  irrita- 
bility of  men  allow  them  to  weigh  and  consider  the  reasonings 
of  each  other,  the  real  interests  of  both  crown  and  people  would 
be  found  to  consist  in  their  mutual  support,  and  are  always  in 
truth  the  same  ;  but  the  rude  warfare  of  human  passions  admits 
not  of  such  salutary  adjustments,  and  as  mutual  offences  are  in 
practice  constantly  given  and  received,  men  who  naturally  kin- 
dle at  the  sight  of  what  they  conceive  to  be  insolence  and  usur- 
pation on  the  one  side,  or  on  the  other  to  be  cruelty  and  wrong, 
are  not  only  inflamed,  when  they  live  at  the  time,  and  are  wit- 
nesses of  the  scene,  but  they  are  unable  to  give  an  accurate 
representation  even  of  the  transactions  of  the  past ;  they  cannot 
consider  them,  with  proper  calmness,  even  when  they  observe 
them,  in  a  subsequent  period,  at  a  secure  distance  of  time  and 


126  LECTURE  V. 

place  ;  so  true  is  this,  that  not  one  thoroughly  impartial  historian 
of  our  annals  can  be  mentioned  ;  and  it  is  necessary  to  warn 
my  hearers  that  they  are  to  adopt  no  train  of  reasoning,  nor 
even  the  narrative  of  any  important  proceeding,  without  a  due 
examination  of  different  writers,  and  a  careful  consideration  of 
their  particular  prejudices. 

Take,  as  specimens,  the  reigns  of  Edward  the  Second,  and 
Richard  the  Second  ;  let  them  be  considered,  first  in  Hume, 
and  afterwards  in  Rapin ;  the  reader  will  be  impressed  with  the 
difference  between  the  representation  of  the  one  historian  and 
the  other.  Let  him  then  turn  to  the  account  given  of  these 
reigns  by  Millar,  the  difference  will  be  still  more  striking ;  the 
reign  of  Richard  the  Second,  for  instance,  is  represented  by 
Millar  as  perfectly  analogous  to  that  of  James  the  Second  ;  a 
king  neglecting  the  interests  and  violating  the  rights  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  justly  deposed.  In  Hume,  on  the  contrary,  we  see 
only  the  picture  of  a  prince  unfitted  to  contend  with  a  turbulent 
people,  and  a  factious  aristocracy,  and  perishing  by  a  cruel 
death,  rather  from  weakness  of  understanding  than  from  any 
malignity  of  disposition. 

The  discordant  observations  of  these  two  distinguished  phi- 
losophers, when  viewing  the  same  actors  and  events  at  the 
distance  of  four  centuries,  sufficiently  exemplify  that  division 
of  sentiment,  which  has  been  described  as  existing  more 
or  less  among  all  political  reasoners  on  similar  occasions. 
Throughout  all  our  history  it  may  be  observed,  that  all  violence 
and  resistance  is  imputed  by  Hume  to  faction  and  barbarism, 
by  Millar  and  most  others  to  a  laudable  spirit  of  freedom  and 
independence. 

These  are  the  observations  that  I  have  to  address  to  those 
students  who  are  disposed  to  search  diligently  into  the  records 
of  our  history. 

But  I  must  now  turn  again  to  the  general  reader,  who 
may  not  have  the  same  ardor  of  inquiry  or  patience  of  study. 
Rapin  and  Hume  are  our  two  great  historians. 

But  it  is  Hume  who  is  read  by  every  one.  Hume  is  the  his- 
torian, whose  views  and  opinions  insensibly  become  our  own. 
He  is  respected  and  admired  by  the  most  enlightened  reader ; 
he  is  the  guide  and  philosopher  of  the  ordinary  reader,  to  whose 
mind,  on  all  the  topics  connected  with  our  history,  he  entirely 
gives  the  tone  and  the  law. 


ENGLAND.  127 

On  every  account,  therefore,  I  shall  dedicate  the  remainder 
of  this  lecture  chiefly  to  the  consideration  of  his  work,  that 
your  confidence  may  not  be  given  too  implicitly,  and  that  while 
you  feel,  as  you  ought  to  do,  the  charm  of  his  composition,  the 
charm  of  what  Gibbon  called  so  justly  his  careless  and  inimita- 
ble beauties,  you  may  be  aware  also  of  the  objections  that  cer- 
tainly exist  to  the  general  tendency  and  practical  effect  of  his 
representations. 

The  two  great  histories  which  we  read,  as  I  must  again  ob- 
serve, are  those  of  Rapin  and  Hume  :  their  political  sentiments 
are  different  ;  but  Hume  is  the  author  who,  from  his  concise- 
ness, the  charms  of  his  style,  and  the  weight  of  his  philosophi- 
cal observations,  is  always  preferred,  and  is  far  more  universally 
and  thoroughly  read. 

It  is  impossible,  indeed,  that  the  confidence  of  a  reader 
should  not  be  won  by  the  general  air  of  calmness  and  good 
sense,  which,  independent  of  other  merits,  distinguishes  the 
beautiful  narrative  of  Hume.  If  he  should  turn  to  his  author- 
ities (speaking  first  on  the  favorable  side  of  the  question),  he 
will  then,  and  then  only,  be  able  to  perceive  the  entire  merit  of 
this  admirable  writer  :  the  dexterity  and  sagacity  with  which 
he  has  often  made  out  his  recital,  the  ease  and  grace  with  which 
it  is  presented  to  the  reader,  and  the  valuable  and  penetrating 
remarks  by  which  it  is  enriched. 

But,  to  speak  next  on  the  unfavorable  side,  by  turning  to 
the  same  authorities,  we  shall  then  perceive  only  the  entire  de- 
merit of  his  work.  It  is  understood,  indeed,  by  every  read- 
er, it  has  been  proclaimed  by  many  writers,  that  Hume  always 
inclines  to  the  side  of  prerogative  ;  that,  in  his  account  of 
the  Stuarts,  his  history  is  little  better  than  an  apology  ;  his 
pages  are  therefore  read,  in  this  part  of  his  work  at  least,  with 
something  of  distrust,  and  his  representations  are  not  con- 
sidered as  decisive.  But  what  reader  turns  to  consult  his 
references  or  examine  his  original  authorities  ?  What  effect 
does  this  distrust,  after  all,  produce  ?  Practically  none.  In 
defiance  of  it,  is  not  the  general  influence  of  his  work,  on  the 
general  reader,  just  such  as  the  author  would  himself  have 
wished  ;  as  strong  and  as  permanent  as  if  every  statement  and 
opinion  in  his  history  had  deserved  our  perfect  assent  and  ap- 
probation ? 


128  LECTURE   V. 

I  must  confess  that  this  appears  to  me  so  entirely  the  fact, 
judging  from  all  that  I  have  experienced  in  myself,  and  ob- 
served in  others,  that  I  do  not  conceive  a  lecturer  in  history 
could  render  (could  offer,  at  least,)  a  more  important  service 
to  an  English  auditory,  than  by  following  Mr.  Hume,  step  by 
step,  through  the  whole  of  his  account  ;  and  showing  what 
were  his  fair,  and  what  his  unfair  inferences  ;  what  his  just  rep- 
resentations, and  what  his  improper  colorings  ;  what  his  mis- 
takes, and  above  all,  what  his  omissions  ;  in  short,  what  were 
the  dangers,  and  what  the  advantages,  that  must  attend  the 
perusal  of  so  popular  and  able  a  performance. 

But  such  lectures,  I  apprehend,  could  not  be  listened  to. 
Were  they  even  formed  into  a  treatise,  they  would  only  be  in 
part  perused  by  the  general  reader  ;  nor  would  they  be  proper- 
ly and  thoroughly  considered,  by  any  but  the  most  patient  in- 
quirers. 

I  would  wish,  however,  to  make  some  effort  of  this  kind, 
however  slight  and  imperfect.  A  sort  of  specimen,  perhaps, 
may  be  offered,  a  general  notion  may,  I  hope,  be  given  ;  and 
as  investigations  of  this  nature  are  very  repulsive  and  fatiguing, 
I  shall  fix  only  upon  some  one  paragraph,  the  first  that  occurs, 
and  examine  it  in  all  its  important  parts  ;  and,  contenting  my- 
self with  this  example,  leave  my  hearers  to  draw  their  own 
reflections,  and  pursue  such  inquiries  to  any  further  extent, 
which  they  may  hereafter  judge  expedient. 

I  have  already  quoted  a  paragraph  from  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  Third,  to  show  that  the  nature  of  the  contest  between  pre- 
rogative and  privilege  always  turned  upon  the  same  points 
through  the  whole  of  our  history.  It  may  be  also  remem- 
bered, that  I  have  always  represented  the  right  of  taxation  as 
the  most  important  question  of  all  :  now  the  paragraph  that  im- 
mediately follows  in  Mr.  Hume,  is  this  : 

"  But  there  was  no  act  of  arbitrary  power  more  frequently 
repeated  in  this  reign,  than  that  of  imposing  taxes  without 
consent  of  parliament.  Though  that  assembly  granted  the 
king  greater  supplies  than  had  ever  been  obtained  by  any  of 
his  predecessors,  his  great  undertakings,  and  the  necessity 
of  his  affairs,  obliged  him  to  levy  still  more  ;  and,  after  his 
splendid  success  in  France  had  added  weight  to  his  authority, 
these  arbitrary  impositions  became  almost  annual  and  per- 


ENGLAND.  129 

petual.  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records  affords  numer- 
ous instances  of  this  kind,  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  in  the 
thirteenth  year,  in  the  fourteenth,  in  the  twentieth,  in  the 
twenty-first,  in  the  twenty-second,  in  the  twenty-fifth,  in  the 
thirty-eighth,  in  the  fiftieth,  and  in  the  fifty-first. 

u  The  king  openly  avowed  and  maintained  this  power  of 
levying  taxes  at  pleasure.  At  one  time  he  replied  to  the 
remonstrance  made  by  the  Commons  against  it,  that  the  im- 
positions had  been  exacted  from  great  necessity,  and  had 
been  assented  to  by  the  prelates,  earls,  barons,  and  some 
of  the  Commons  ;  at  another,  that  he  would  advise  with  his 
council.  When  the  parliament  desired  that  a  law  might  be 
enacted  for  the  punishment  of  such  as  levied  these  arbitrary 
impositions,  he  refused  compliance.  In  the  subsequent  year, 
they  desired  that  the  king  might  renounce  this  pretended  pre- 
rogative ;  but  his  answer  was,  that  he  would  levy  no  taxes 
without  necessity,  for  the  defence  of  the  realm,  and  where  he 
reasonably  might  use  that  authority.  This  incident  passed  a 
few  days  before  his  death,  and  these  were,  in  a  manner,  his 
last  words  to  his  people.  It  would  seem  that  the  famous  char- 
ter or  statute  of  Edward  the  First,  c  de  tallagio  non  conce- 
dendo,'  though  never  repealed,  was  supposed  to  have  already 
lost  by  age  all  its  authority.  These  facts  can  only  show  the 
practice  of  the  times  ;  for  as  to  the  right,  the  continued  re- 
monstrances of  the  Commons  may  seem  to  prove  that  it  rather 
lay  on  their  side  ;  at  least,  those  remonstrances  served  to  pre- 
vent the  arbitrary  practice  of  the  court  from  becoming  an 
established  part  of  the  constitution." 

Now,  here  we  have  certainly  very  important  statements. 
Let  my  hearer  observe  them. 

"  But  there  was  no  act  of  arbitrary  power  more  frequently 
repeated  in  this  reign,  than  that  of  imposing  taxes  without  con- 
sent of  parliament." —  "These  arbitrary  impositions  became 
almost  annual  and  perpetual."  —  "  The  king  openly  avowed 
and  maintained  this  power  of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure."  — 
Such  are  Mr.  Hume's  expressions  to  represent  the  facts. 

"  These  facts,"  he  continues,  "  only  show  the  practice  of 
the  times,  for  as  to  the  right,  the  continual  remonstrances  of 
the  Commons  may  seem  to  prove  that  it  rather  lay  on  their 
side."  —  Such  is  the  general  air  of  his  reasoning  upon  these 
facts. 

VOL.  i.  17 


130  LECTURE  V. 

Now,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  a  writer  like  Mr.  Hume 
will  be  palpably  and  entirely  unfair  either  in  his  facts  or  his 
reasonings,  yet  he  may  be  sufficiently  so,  to  give  his  reader  an 
impression  on  the  whole  not  so  favorable  to  the  constitutional 
rights  of  the  subject,  as  the  case  admits  of. 

The  authority  quoted  is  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Rec- 
ords ;  and  on  consulting  the  references  of  Mr.  Hume,  they 
will  be  seen  to  prove,  as  he  asserts,  that  money  was  raised 
by  the  king,  without  the  authority  of  parliament.  This  must 
be  considered  as  proved  by  the  occasional  complaints  of  the 
Commons,  which  in  the  references  constantly  appear  ;  but  the 
still  more  important  consideration  is  this, — what  were  the 
answers  of  the  king  to  these  complaints  of  the  Commons  ?  Mr. 
Hume's  assertion  is,  that  "  the  king  openly  avowed  and  main- 
tained this  power  of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure.  At  one  time," 
says  Hume,  "  he  replied  to  the  remonstrance  made  by  the 
Commons,  '  that  the  impositions  had  been  exacted  from  great 
necessity,  and  had  been  assented  to  by  the  prelates,  earls,  and 
barons,  and  some  of  the  commons.'  "  Now,  even  this  answer, 
thus  given  by  Mr.  Hume,  does  not  justify  him  in  the  asser- 
tion, that  the  king  openly  avowed  and  maintained  the  power  of 
levying  taxes  at  pleasure,  —  quite  the  contrary  ;  for  the  king 
alleged  not  his  right  but  the  necessity  of  the  case,  and  the 
assent  of  the  lords  and  part  of  the  commons.  Upon  looking, 
however,  at  Mr.  Hume's  reference  to  Cotton,  page  53,  the 
real  answer  appears  to  have  been  as  follows  :  —  "If  any  such 
imposition  be  made,  the  same  was  made  upon  great  necessity, 
and  with  the  assent  of  the  prelates,  counts,  barons,  and  other 
great  men,  and  some  of  the  commons  then  present,  notwith- 
standing the  king  wills  not,  that  such  undue  impositions  be 
drawn  into  consequence." 

These  last  words,  "  notwithstanding,  '&c.  &c."  are  totally 
omitted  by  Mr.  Hume  in  his  representation  of  the  king's  an- 
swer ;  but  they  are  evidently  very  material  and  entirely  op- 
posed to  Mr.  Hume's  affirmation,  that  the  king  openly  avowed 
and  maintained  this  power  of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure,  in 
so  much  so,  that  they  are  the  very  words  which  are  always 
used,  when  a  particular  exception  is  made  to  a  general  rule, 
and  it  is  thought  necessary  to  assert  and  acknowledge  the 
general  rule,  and  leave  it  as  it  stood  before.  The  king's 


ENGLAND.  131 

answer  in  every  part  of  it,  particularly  in  this  last  omitted 
part,  implies  that  the  right  of  levying  money  could  not  be 
regularly  exercised  without  the  parliament. 

Again.  At  another  time,  says  Mr.  Hume,  the  king  replied, 
"  that  he  would  advise  with  his  council  ; "  but  the  real  answer 
in  the  reference  in  Cotton,  page  57,  is  this  ;  "  that  the  subsidy 
(of  which  they  seem  to  have  complained)  was  granted  for  a 
time  yet  enduring,  within  which  time  the  king  will  advise  with 
his  council,  what  shall  be  best  to  be  done  therein  for  the  good 
of  the  people." 

The  first  part  of  this  answer  (that  the  subsidy  was  granted 
for  a  term  yet  enduring,)  which  acknowledges  the  right  of  the 
Commons,  is  again  totally  omitted  by  Mr.  Hume,  and  his  rep- 
resentation is,  that  the  king  answered,  "  that  he  would  advise 
with  his  council."  Again.  "  When  the  parliament,"  says  Mr. 
Hume,  "  desired  that  a  law  might  be  enacted  for  the  punish- 
ment of  such  as  levied  these  arbitrary  impositions,  the  king 
refused  compliance." 

Upon  consulting  the  reference,  the  petition  of  the  Commons 
runs  thus.  They  petition,  "that  such  as  shall  of  their  own 
authority  lay  new  impositions  without  assent  of  parliament,  may 
lose  life,  member,  and  other  forfeitures."  In  the  House  of 
Commons  this  was  surely  a  most  violent  and  objectionable 
mode  of  asserting  their  right  of  taxation,  and  well  deserving  the 
resistance  of  the  king. 

The  answer  of  the  king  was,  "  Let  the  common  law  hereto- 
fore used,  run." 

Now  this  is  not  so  much  to  refuse  compliance,  as  to  give  a 
proper  answer. 

On  the  whole,  we  have  here  neither  the  exact  petition,  nor 
the  exact  answer  that  would  have  been  supposed  from  the 
account  given  by  Mr.  Hume  ;  the  words  of  trie  Commons 
would  have  been  supposed,  from  Hume's  expressions,  more 
reasonable,  and  those  of  the  king  more  authoritative  and  arbitra- 
ry, than  they  really  were  ;  that  is,  an  improper  representation 
is  given  of  both  the  one  and  the  other. 

"In  the  subsequent  year,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  they  desired 
that  the  king  might  renounce  this  pretended  prerogative."  The 
reference  which  is  printed  in  the  margin  of  Hume,  in  some 
editions,  132,  should  be  152,  and  is  more  exactly  represented 


132  LECTURE  V. 

by  Mr.  Hume  than  any  of  the  rest.  For  the  part  of  the  par- 
liament roll  referred  to,  we  are  indebted  to  the  diligence,  not 
of  Cotton,  but  of  his  editor,  the  famous  Prynne. 

The  petition  from  the  Commons  was  for  a  general  surrender 
of  the  right,  totally  and  formally. 

But  the  king,  whose  end  was  now  approaching,  having  nothing 
further  to  hope  or  fear  from  his  people,  and  not  inclined  by  his 
own  act  formally  to  abandon  for  his  successor  a  power  which 
he  had  sometimes  found  it  so  convenient  to  exercise,  returned 
for  answer,  as  might  have  been  expected,  "  That  with  respect 
to  laying  any  charge  upon  the  people  without  common  as- 
sent, that  the  king  is  not  at  all  willing  to  do  it  without  great 
necessity  and  for  the  defence  of  the  realm,  and  where  he  may 
do  it  with  reason." 

In  those  other  instances  which  are  produced  by  Mr.  Hume, 
to  prove  the  practice  of  arbitrary  impositions,  instances  where 
Mr.  Hume  quotes  no  answer,  there  is  either  no  answer  from 
the  king  on  record,  or  one  that  is  soothing  and  apologetical, 
or  one  that  is  favorable  to  the  right  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Indeed,  the  king's  very  silence  must  be  considered  as  favora- 
ble to  their  right. 

In  one  of  the  first  instances  of  complaint  referred  to  by 
Hume,  the  answer  was,  "  Forasmuch  as  these  charges  were 
ordained  (alluding  to  charges  ordained  by  the  Privy  Council 
without  the  Commons,)  for  safe  conduct  of  merchandises  into 
the  realm  and  forth  to  foreign  parts,  upon  which  conduct  the 
king  hath  spent  much,  which  before  Michaelmas  cannot  well 
be  levied,  it  seemeth  that  the  levying  of  it,  for  so  small  a  time 
to  come,  should  not  be  grievous." 

This  is  apologetical.  Again  ;  some  merchants  had  farmed  the 
customs  and  subsidies,  and  raised  the  rate  above  that  mentioned 
by  parliament ;  the  Commons  complained  ;  the  answer  was,  — 
"  Let  the  merchants  be  called  into  parliament  and  answer."  In 
another  instance  of  complaint  not  mentioned  by  Mr.  Hume,  the 
answer  was  the  same  as  the  OBB  already  cited,  "  That  the  im- 
position was  made  upon  great  necessity,  with  the  assent  of  the 
courts,  &c.,  and  some  of  the  Commons,  and  that  the  king  wills 
not,  that  such  imposition  be  unduly  drawn  in  consequence." 

The  student,  after  having  weighed  these  answers,  is  then 
to  reflect  upon  the  great  ability,  attractive  qualities,  military 


ENGLAND.  133 

talents,  and  brilliant  victories  of  this  renowned  monarch,  of 
Edward  the  Third,  and  he  must  then  consider,  whether  no 
stronger  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  the  whole,  than  what 
Mr.  Hume  leaves  with  his  readers,  which  is  this  :  that,  "  as 
to  the  right  of  taxation,  the  continued  remonstrances  of  the 
Commons  may  seem  to  prove  that  it  rather  lay  on  their  side." 

The  paragraph  that  has  been  thus  taken  from  Mr.  Hume 
was  not  selected  as  one  in  which  he  was  either  faulty  or  other- 
wise in  his  representations,  but  as  one  that  exhibited,  in  the 
smallest  compass,  the  nature  of  the  constitution  at  that  time, 
and  ever  after,  till  16S8,  and  as  one  that  involved  more  espe- 
cially the  question  of  the  right  of  taxation.  It  was  literally 
the  first  that  I  tried. 

On  examination,  however,  it  turns  out  that  we  do  not  arrive 
at  the  conclusions  which  Mr.  Hume  has  drawn  for  us  :  far  from 
it  ;  and  we  are  thus  taught  to  be  more  than  ever  suspicious  of 
the  historian's  particular  prejudices.  And,  on  the  whole,  this 
instance  will  show  you  that  you  must  not  take  it  for  granted, 
that  Mr.  Hume  accurately  represents  even  the  very  authori- 
ties he  quotes  :  so  irresistible  in  these  cases  is  the  influence 
of  the  sentiments  of  the  mind  over  the  operations  of  the  under- 
standing. 

I  stop  to  observe,  that,  as  a  lecturer  on  history,  I  can  only 
point  out  to  you  fields  of  inquiry  and  trains  of  reasoning,  and 
it  must  be  left  for  you  to  do  the  rest. 

Thus  I  have  just  now  drawn  your  attention  to  one  great  line 
of  objection  to  Mr.  Hume's  history,  his  inaccurate  represen- 
tation of  the  very  authorities  he  quotes.  You  must  yourselves 
pursue  the  subject. 

But  I  will  now  mention  another  :  the  coloring  which  he 
gives  to  his  materials,  and  this  more  particularly  in  a  manner  of 
his  own.  He  ascribes  to  the  personages  of  history,  as  they 
pass  before  him,  the  views  and  opinions  of  later  ages  ;  those 
sentiments  and  reasonings,  for  instance,  which  his  own  enlight- 
ened and  powerful  mind  was  enabled  to  form,  not  those,  which 
either  really  were  or  could  be  formed  by  men  thinking  and  act- 
ing many  centuries  before. 

But  this  is  to  mislead  the  reader,  and  in  fact  to  draw  him 
aside  from  all  the  proper  instruction  of  history,  much  of  which 
lies  in  the  comparison  of  one  age  with  another. 

I  will  refer  to  an  instance,  taken  from  the  times  we  are  now 


134  LECTURE  V. 

considering,  as  a  general  specimen  of  what  I  conceive  to  be 
one  of  the  most  common  and  serious  faults  that  can  be  object- 
ed to  in  the  attractive  pages  of  his  history. 

In  his  account  of  the  unfortunate  close  of  the  reign  of  Rich- 
ard the  Second,  Mr.  Hume  observes,  that  one  man  alone,  the 
Bishop  of  Carlisle,  had  the  courage,  amid  the  general  disloy- 
alty and  violence,  to  appear  in  defence  of  his  unhappy  master, 
and  to  plead  his  cause  against  all  the  power  of  the  prevailing 
party. 

He  then  gives  a  representation  of  the  speech  ;  but  if  we 
turn  to  Sir  J.  Hayward's  history  (the  authority  which  Hume 
himself  quotes),  we  may  there  see  the  speech  fully  given  ;  and 
it  will  be  found  not  without  its  beauties,  but  certainly  very  in- 
ferior to  the  representation  of  it,  which  is  exhibited  in  Hume. 
The  philosophic  observations  which  are  interwoven  and  added 
by  Mr.  Hume  serve  to  give  a  great  force  and  finish  to  the  ex- 
postulations of  the  bishop  in  favor  of  the  fallen  monarch  ;  but 
the  more  important  consideration  is,  that  they  serve  also  to 
throw  over  the  proceedings  of  the  barons  an  air  of  greater  vio- 
lence and  criminality,  than  properly  belong  to  them  ;  for  their 
conduct  rises  up  in  still  stronger  contrast,  if  such  views  of  the 
English  constitution  and  of  the  principles  of  government  could 
indeed  have  been  taken  and  urged  in  such  an  assembly  by  a 
contemporary  statesman,  a  man  of  like  passions  and  like  infor- 
mation with  themselves. 

I  will  venture  to  take  up  your  time  by  considering  more  mi- 
nutely the  instance  before  us.  Observe,  first,  the  beautiful  rea- 
sonings of  Hume  :  it  would  be  not  a  little  marvellous  if  they  had 
been  produced  by  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle  in  the  time  of  Rich- 
ard the  Second.  "  He  represented,"  says  Hume,  "  to  the 
parliament,  that  all  the  abuses  of  government  which  could  justly 
be  imputed  to  Richard,  far  from  amounting  to  tyranny,  were 
merely  the  result  of  error  and  youth,  or  misguided  counsel  :  " 
this,  though  in  different  words,  the  bishop  did  say.  "  And 
that  this  admitted,"  continues  Mr.  Hume,  "  of  a  remedy 
more  easy  and  salutary  than  a  total  subversion  of  the  consti- 
tution :  "  this,  which  is  of  a  more  philosophic  cast,  the  bishop 
did  not  say.  Now  mark  what  immediately  follows  in  Hume  ; 
not  any  such  observation,  as  was  very  likely  to  be  offered  by 
the  bishop  to  the  barons,  or  even  to  have  occurred  to  the 


ENGLAND.  135 

mind  of  Sir  J.  Hayward  himself,  two  centuries  afterwards,  but 
the  very  observation  which  contains  the  whole  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  Mr.  Hume  while  writing  the  History  of  England  ;  the 
great  principle  by  means  of  which  he  defends  all  the  arbitrary 
proceedings  of  our  monarchs,  and  by  which  he  reconciles 
his  unwary  readers  to  the  admission  of  sentiments  and  opin- 
ions unfavorable  to  the  best  interests  and  assured  rights  of 
the  popular  part  of  our  constitution.  "  The  bishop  repre- 
sented to  the  Lords,"  continues  Mr.  Hume,  "  that  even  if 
these  abuses  of  government  had  been  much  more  violent  and 
dangerous  than  they  really  were,  they  had  chiefly  proceeded 
from  former  examples  of  resistance,  which,  making  the  prince 
sensible  of  his  precarious  situation,  had  obliged  him  to  es- 
tablish his  throne  by  irregular  and  arbitrary  expedients  :  " 
the  bishop  said  nothing  of  the  sort.  And  now  observe  the 
next  remark  that  follows  in  Hume  ;  how  worthy  of  the  gen- 
eralizing mind  of  the  philosopher  of  the  eighteenth  century,  — 
how  little  likely  to  have  been  addressed  by  a  warm-hearted 
ecclesiastic  to  the  disorderly  barons  of  the  fourteenth.  "  That 
laws  could  never  secure  the  subject  which  did  not  give  secu- 
rity to  the  sovereign  ;  and  if  the  maxim  of  inviolable  loy- 
alty, which  formed  the  basis  of  the  English  government,  were 
once  rejected,  the  privileges  belonging  to  the  several  orders 
of  the  state,  instead  of  being  fortified  by  that  licentiousness, 
would  thereby  lose  the  surest  foundation  of  their  force  and  sta- 
bility." 

All  this  is  very  true  and  worthy  of  a  great  reasoner  like 
Mr.  Hume,  when  applying  the  powers  of  his  mind  to  the  sub- 
ject of  government  ;  and  all  this  may  be  cheerfully  assented 
to  by  the  warmest  partisan  of  popular  privileges  ;  and  the 
more  so,  because  it  is  at  length  understood,  that  the  king  can 
act  only  by  his  ministers  ;  and  that  though  the  king  must  be 
secure,  that  his  mind  may  be  at  rest  on  the  subject  of  his  pre- 
rogative, and  that  the  security  also  of  his  people  may  be  thus 
undisturbed,  still  that  his  ministers  need  not  ;  that  they  are 
responsible  at  least,  though  the  sovereign  be  not  ;  that  in 
short,  there  is  some  one  responsible,  and  that  the  community 
is  not  left  at  the  mercy  of  fortune,  and  without  any  reasonable 
means  of  watching  over  its  own  interests. 

No  such  interpretation,  however,  of  this  great  principle  of 


136  LECTURE  V. 

government  is  added  by  Mr.  Hume  ;  and  neither  the  principle 
so  stated,  nor  the  interpretation,  are  to  be  found  in  Sir  J. 
Hayward  ;  and  it  was  not  in  this  philosophic  manner  that  the 
bishop  reasoned  according  to  the  representation  of  Sir  J.  Hay- 
ward  ;  his  arguments  were  founded  merely  upon  the  obvious 
doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
"  I  will  not  speak,"  said  the  bishop,  (according  to  Sir  J. 
Hayward)  "  what  may  be  done  in  a  popular  state  or  a  con- 
sular. In  these  and  such  like  governments,  the  prince  hath 
not  legal  rights  ;  but  if  the  sovereign  majesty  be  in  the  prince, 
as  it  was  in  the  three  first  empires,  and  in  the  kingdoms  of 
Judea  and  Israel,  and  is  now  in  the  kingdoms  of  England, 
France,  Spain,  Scotland,  Muscovy,  Turkey,  Tartaria,  Persia, 
Ethiopia,  and  almost  all  the  kingdoms  of  Asia  and  Africke,  — 
(very  like  the  philosophic  reasonings  of  Hume,  all  this  !  Eng- 
land !  Ethiopia  !  and  Africke  !)  —  although  for  his  vices  he 
be  unprofitable  to  the  subjects,  yea  hurtful,  yea  intolerable, 
yet  can  they  lawfully  neither  harme  his  person  nor  hazard  his 
power,  whether  by  judgment  or  else  by  force  ;  for  neither  one 
nor  all  magistrates  have  any  authority  over  the  prince  from 
whom  all  authority  is  derived,  and  whose  only  presence  doeth 
silence  and  suspend  all  inferiour  jurisdiction  and  power.  As 
for  force,  what  subject  can  attempt,  or  assist,  or  counsel,  or 
conceal  violence  against  his  prince  and  not  incur  the  high  and 
heinous  crime  of  treason  ?  " 

The  bishop  then  goes  on  to  quote  the  instance  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, of  Baltazar,  of  Saul,  and  then  insists  that  "  not  only 
our  actions  but  our  speeches  also  and  our  very  thoughts  are 
strictly  charged  with  duty  and  obedience  unto  princes,  whether 
ihey  be  good  princes  or  evil ;  that  the  law  of  God  ordaineth 
that  he  which  doeih  presumptuously  against  the  ruler  of  the 
people,  shall  dye  ;  that  we  are  not  to  touch  the  Lord's  anoint- 
ed, nor  rail  upon  the  judges,  neither  speak  evil  against  the 
ruler  of  the  people  ;  that  the  Apostles  do  demand  further  that 
even  our  thoughts  and  soules  bee  obedient  to  higher  powers  ; 
and  least  any  one  should  imagine  that  they  meant  of  good 
princes  only,  they  speak  generally  of  all  ;  and  further,  to  take 
away  all  doubt,  they  may  (make)  expresse  mention  of  the  evil 
princes,"  &c.  &c. 

The  bishop  then  goes  on  to  illustrate  his  doctrine  by  the 


ENGLAND.  137 

consideration  of  the  domestic  relation  of  parent  and^child. 
u  The  son  must  not  lift  up  his  hand,"  says  he,  "against  the 
father,  though  for  all  excesse  of  villanies,  odious  and  execrable 
both  to  God  and  man  ;  but  our  country  is  dearer  unto  us 
than  our  parents,  and  the  prince  is  Paler  Patria?,  the  father 
of  our  country,  and  therefore,  &c.  &c.,  not  to  be  violated. 
Doth  he  (the  prince)  command  or  demand  our  persons  or  our 
purses,  we  must  not  shun  for  the  one  nor  shrink  for  the  other  ; 
for,  as  Nehemiah  saith,"  continues  the  bishop,  "  kings  have 
dominion  over  the  bodies  and  over  the  cattle  of  their  subjects 
at  their  pleasure.  Yea,  the  church  hath  declared  it  to  bee 
an  heresie  to  hold  that  a  prince  may  be  slain  or  deposed  by 
llis  subjects  for  any  disorder  or  fault  either  in  life  or  else  in 
government."  Such  is  the  reasoning  of  the  bishop,  as  given 
by  Sir  J.  Hay  ward.  And  his  philosophy,  when  it  appears,  is 
the  following  :  "  There  will  be  faultes  so  long  as  there  are  men; 
and  as  we  endure  with  patience  a  barren  year,  if  it  happen, 
and  unseasonable  weather,  and  such  other  defects  of  nature, 
so  must  wee  tollerate  the  imperfections  of  rulers  and  quietlye 
expecte  eyther  reformation  or  else  a  change." 

This  is  the  first  specimen  of  it,  and  the  only  remaining 
philosophic  position  that  I  can  observe,  is  the  following  : 

u  Oh  !  how  shall  the  worlde  be  pestered  with  tyrantes,  if 
subjects  may  rebell  upon  every  pretence  of  tyranny  !  "  The 
instances  that  followed  to  illustrate  this  remark  are  not  well 
chosen  by  the  bishop.  "  If  they  levy  a  subsidy  or  any  other 
taxation,  it  shall  be  claymed  oppression,"  &c.  &c. 

And  now  what  will  my  hearer  suppose,  if  I  tell  him  that  I 
believe  the  speech  thus  given  by  Sir  J.  Hayward  to  the  good 
bishop,  is  wholly  the  composition  of  Sir  J.  himself;  and  that 
though  the  general  statement  of  passive  obedience  may  have 
been  expressed  by  the  bishop,  no  such  words  were  uttered  as 
he  describes.  Walsingham  takes  no  notice  of  the  bishop's 
speech.  Another  historian,  Hall,  but  about  the  time  of  Sir 
J.  Hayward,  says  that  the  bishop  did  rise  up  in  his  place  and 
speak  ;  and  the  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  are  put  into  his 
mouth  by  Hall.  The  same  is  done  in  the  play  of  Richard  the 
Second,  by  Shakspeare,  and  these  doctrines  were  possibly  the 
topics  that  he  chiefly  insisted  upon  ;  but  the  only  fact  that 
can  now  be  ascertained,  is,  that  he  was  thrown  into  prison  for 

VOL.  i.  18 


138  LECTURE  V. 

words  spoken  in  parliament  in  opposition  to  the  usurpation  of 
Henry  ;  and  on  this  has  been  founded  the  very  elaborate 
speech  of  Sir  J.  Hay  ward,  and  the  very  improbable  arguments 
ascribed  to  him  by  Hume.  Now  all  this  is  not  to  write  history 
either  in  Mr.  Hume  or  in  Sir  J.  Hayward. 

And  this  instance  will  be  sufficient  to  show  you,  as  before, 
the  particular  description  of  fault,  which  may  be  objected  to 
Mr.  Hume,  that  of  coloring  the  materials  before  him,  and 
attributing  to  the  personages  of  history  the  sentiments  of  his 
own  philosophic  mind  ;  and  this  second  description  of  fault  is 
to  be  added  to  the  former,  which  I  have  mentioned,  that  of 
not  accurately  representing  the  very  passages  he  quotes. 

In  the  next  page  of  his  history,  indeed,  when  Mr.  Hume 
comes  to  comment  upon  the  title  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  to  the 
crown,  he  attributes  a  speech  to  the  king,  and  properly,  for  he 
can  extract  from  the  rolls  of  parliament  the  very  words  which 
the  king  made  use  of.  This  Mr.  Hume  does,  and  this  is  to 
write  history. 

The  words  extracted  are  certainly  very  remarkable,  and 
very  descriptive  of  the  scene  and  the  age  ;  but  it  is  relics  of 
this  kind,  that  an  historian  should  produce  and  make  the  sub- 
ject of  the  philosophic  meditation  of  his  reader,  not  offer  him 
modern  views  and  sentiments  of  his  own. 

A  few  barbarous  words  or  any  distinct  fact,  that  can  be 
shown  to  be  authentic,  are  worth  volumes  of  reasonings  and 
conjectures  of  a  thinking  mind  ;  or  rather,  it  is  on  such  relics 
and  facts  that  the  student  must  in  the  first  place  alone  depend 
when  he  collects  materials  for  his  instruction,  and  he  must 
never  lose  sight  of  them,  when  he  comes  afterwards  to  build  up 
his  political  reasonings  and  conclusions. 

It  is  upon  this  account,  and  it  is  to  impress  this  lesson 
upon  your  recollection,  that  I  have  gone  into  this  detail,  and 
perhaps,  not  a  little  exercised  your  patience.  It  is  for  this 
reason  and  for  another,  to  show  you  the  importance  of  the 
political  principles  of  men  ;  a  point  which  I  must  for  ever 
enforce  in  the  course  of  these  lectures.  First  observe  the 
general  remarks  of  Hume.  —  "  Though  some  topics,"  says  Mr. 
Hume,  while  introducing  the  passages  I  have  quoted  from 
him,  "  though  some  topics  employed  by  that  virtuous  prelate, 
the  bishop  of  Carlisle,  may  seem  to  favor  too  much  the 


ENGLAND.  139 

doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  &c.  &c.,  the  intrepidity  as  well 
as  disinterestedness  of  his  behaviour  proves,"  says  Mr.  Hume, 
"  that  whatever  his  speculative  principles  were,  his  heart  was 
elevated  far  above  the  meanness  and  abject  submission  of  a 
slave. "  Undoubtedly  it  does  :  this  observation  of  Mr.  Hume 
is  very  just,  and,  therefore,  it  is  more  incumbent  upon  me,  as 
your  lecturer,  to  impress  upon  your  minds  the  importance  of 
your  political  principles,  that  you  may  endeavour  to  be  wise,  as 
well  as  virtuous.  It  is  but  too  plain,  from  the  historian's  own 
account,  that  men  of  the  most  noble  feelings  and  honorable 
character,  (such  as  the  bishop  is  here  supposed  by  Mr.  Hume 
to  have  been,)  may  on  public  occasions  act  upon  principles^and 
enforce  political  doctrines,  which  can  have  no  tendency  but  to 
make  their  fellow-creatures  base  and  servile,  (whatever  they 
may  be  themselves,)  by  injuring  and  destroying  the  only  source 
of  all  elevated  character  in  a  people,  the  free  principles  of  the 
constitution  of  their  government.  It  is  of  little  consequence, 
that  men  may  not  have,  themselves,  the  feelings  of  slaves,  if 
they  propagate  doctrines  that  will  practically  and  in  the  result 
make  a  nation  of  slaves  around  them. 

But  to  return  to  Hume.  Gilbert  Stuart,  a  very  able  though 
somewhat  impetuous  inquirer  into  the  earlier  parts  of  our 
history,  has  pronounced  his  opinion  upon  the  work  of  Mr. 
Hume  in  the  following  words  :  u  From  its  beginning  to  its 
conclusion,  it  is  chiefly  to  be  regarded  as  a  plausible  defence 
of  prerogative.  As  an  elegant  and  a  spirited  composition,  it 
merits  every  commendation.  But  no  friend  to  humanity, 
and  to  the  freedom  of  this  kingdom,  will  consider  his  consti- 
tutional inquiries,  with  their  effect  on  his  narrative,  and 
compare  them  with  the  ancient  and  venerable  monuments  of 
our  story,  without  feeling  a  lively  surprise,  and  a  patriot  indig- 
nation." 

This  opinion,  however  severe,  is  not  very  different  from  that 
which  is  in  general  entertained  by  others,  who  from  previous 
study  are  competent  to  decide  ;  and  this,  while  the  literary 
merits  of  the  history  are  universally  acknowledged.  The  stu- 
dent will  therefore  read,  with  more  than  ordinary  care,  what  he 
is  told  is  so  fitted  at  once  to  charm  his  taste  and  to  mislead  his 
understanding. 

Since  I  drew  up  this  lecture,  a  work  has  been  published 


140  LECTURE  V. 

by  Mr.  Brodie,  of  Edinburgh  ;  it  is  not  well  written  in  point 
of  style,  and  the  author  must  be  considered  as  a  writer  on 
the  popular  side,  but  he  is  a  man  of  research  and  indepen- 
dence of  mind.  It  is  a  work  of  weight  and  learning,  and  it 
appears  to  me  for  ever  to  have  damaged,  and  most  materially 
damaged,  the  character  of  Mr.  Hume  as  an  accurate  historian. 
It  justifies  the  opinion  I  have  just  alluded  to,  as  pronounced 
by  Gilbert  Stuart,  and  maintained  by  others  competent  to 
decide. 

I  must  observe,  before  I  conclude,  that  it  is  the  general 
effect  of  the  narrative  of  this  able  historian  that  is  of  so  much 
importance.  Particular  passages  might  be  drawn  from  his 
work  of  every  description,  favorable  as  well  as  unfavorable  to 
the  privileges  of  the  subject.  But  the  sentiment  conveyed 
by  such  particular  passages,  taken  singly,  do  in  fact  stand 
opposed  to  the  general  impression  that  results  from  the 
whole. 

Were  a  popular  writer  to  seek  for  observations  favorable  to 
the  cause  of  the  liberties  of  England,  he  would  often  find  them 
nowhere  better  expressed  ;  but  their  being  found  in  the  history 
of  Hume  is  a  circumstance  quite  analogous  to  what  constantly 
obtains,  in  every  literary  performance,  where  the  author  has 
(on  whatever  account)  a  general  purpose  to  accomplish,  which 
the  nature  of  his  subject  does  not  in  strict  reason  allow.  Truth 
is,  then,  continually  mixed  up  with  misrepresentation,  and  the 
whole  mass  of  the  reasoning,  which  in  its  final  impression  is 
materially  wrong,  is  so  interspersed  with  observations,  which  are 
in  themselves  perfectly  right;  that  the  reader  is  at  no  time  suf- 
ficiently on  his  guard,  and  is  at  last  betrayed  into  conclusions 
totally  unwarrantable,  and  at  variance  with  his  best  feelings  and 
soundest  opinions. 

Observe  the  writings  of  Rochefoucault  or  Mandeville  ;  you 
will  there  see  what  I  am  describing,  as  indeed  you  may  in 
every  work,  where  the  author  is  deceived  himself  or  is  deceiv- 
ing others. 

One  word  more  and  I  conclude,  one  word  as  an  estimate  of 
the  whole  subject  between  Mr.  Hume  and  his  opponents. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  agree  with  Mr.  Hume,  that  the 
whole  of  our  history  during  the  period  from  Edward  the  First  to 
Henry  the  Eighth  was  a  scene  of  irregularity  and  of  great  occa- 


ENGLAND.  141 

sional  violence  ;  that  the  laws  could  neither  be  always  main- 
tained, nor  could  the  principles  of  legislation  be  ever  said  to 
be  well  understood  ;  we  must  admit,  therefore,  that  it  is  not 
fair  to  imagine,  as  Mr.  Hume  complains  we  do,  that  all  the 
princes,  who  were  unfortunate  in  their  government,  were 
necessarily  tyrannical  in  their  conduct,  and  that  resistance  to 
the  monarch  always  proceeded  from  some  attempt  on  his  part 
to  invade  the  privileges  of  the  subject.  This  we  must  admit. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  it  must  be  observed  that  the 
struggle  between  the  subject  and  the  crown  was  constantly 
kept  up  in  the  times  of  the  most  able,  as  well  as  of  the  weak- 
est monarchs  ;  that  they,  who  resisted  the  prerogative,  never 
did  it,  without  producing  those  maxims  and  without  asserting 
those  principles  of  freedom,  which  are  necessary  to  all  rational 
government  ;  which  are  by  no  means  fitted  in  themselves  to 
produce  anarchy,  and  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  all  those 
salutary  prerogatives  of  the  crown,  which  are  requisite  to  the 
regular  protection  of  the  subject. 

In  the  third  place,  that,  if  these  maxims  and  principles  had 
not  been  from  time  to  time  asserted,  and  sometimes  with  suc- 
cess, the  result  would  have  been,  that  our  constitution  would 
have  degenerated,  like  that  of  France  and  of  every  other  Eu- 
ropean state,  into  a  system  of  monarchical  power,  unlimited 
and  unrestrained  by  the  interference  of  any  legislative  assem- 
blies. 

And  that  therefore,  in  the  last  place,  Mr.  Hume  tells  the 
story  of  England  without  giving  sufficient  praise  to  those  pa- 
triots who  preserved  and  transmitted  those  general  habits  of 
thinking  on  political  subjects  which  have  always  distinguished 
this  country,  and  to  which  alone  every  Englishman  owes,  at 
this  day,  all  that  makes  his  life  a  blessing  and  his  existence 
honorable. 


LECTURE    VI. 

ENGLAND. 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  called  your  attention  to  England.  After 
showing  you  that  in  the  consideration  of  its  history  we  soon 
arrived  at  the  same  points  as  in  the  history  of  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope, I  mentioned  to  you,  that  there  were  before  you  the  facts 
of  our  history  and  the  philosophy  of  it  ;  that  you  were  to 
acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  one,  but  that  you  must  endeavour 
to  understand  the  other  ;  above  all,  that  the  constitutional  his- 
tory of  your  country  must  be  your  great  object  of  inquiry  ; 
that  Rapin,  Hume,  and  Millar  must  be  your  authors  ;  at  the 
same  time  I  referred  you  to  other  sources  of  information  and 
other  historians. 

Next,  I  stated  to  you,  that  a  difference  in  the  opinions  of 
men  had  existed  and  always  must  exist  in  every  mixed  form 
of  government ;  that  there  must  be  always  those  who  favor  the 
monarchical  and  those  who  favor  the  popular  part  of  it ;  that 
through  the  whole  of  our  history,  down  to  1688,  there  had 
been  maintained  a  struggle  between  prerogative  and  privilege  ; 
and  that  no  thoroughly  impartial  historian  of  our  annals  could 
be  found. 

Lastly,  I  attempted  to  give  you  some  general  description  of 
the  merits  of  Hume,  the  most  popular  and  the  most  able,  and 
therefore  the  most  important,  of  our  historians. 

I  endeavoured  to  protect  you,  or  rather  to  enable  you  to 
protect  yourselves,  from  the  mistakes  into  which  you  might 
fall  if  you  depended  on  his  representations,  if  you  rested  upon 
them  with  that  confidence,  which  his  evident  good  sense  and 
apparent  calmness  and  impartiality  would  naturally  inspire. 

His  references,  as  I  then  showed  you,  do  not  always  bear 
him  out  in  his  statements  ;  and  his  omissions  must  be  taken 


ENGLAND.  143 

into  account  as  well  as  his  misrepresentations,  — this  is  the  first 
point. 

But  he  ascribes  to  those  who  acted  in  the  earlier  scenes  of 
our  history  sentiments  and  opinions  which  belong  only  to  his 
own  philosophic  mind,  — this  is  the  second. 

On  the  whole,  he  does  not  tell  the  story  of  our  constitutional 
history  fairly. 

He  must,  in  his  facts,  be  compared  with  Rapin  ;  if  necessa- 
ry, with  original  authorities  :  and  in  his  philosophy  with  Millar 
and  others. 

And  now  I  must  digress  for  a  moment,  to  offer  you  a  re- 
mark, which  I  hope  you  will  hereafter  not  think  very  unnatural 
for  me  to  have  made  on  the  present  occasion. 

It  is  wonderful  then,  I  must  observe,  it  is  wonderful  to  see 
men  like  Mr.  Hume,  of  peaceful  habits,  and  of  benevolent  af- 
fections, men  at  the  same  time  of  improved  minds  and  of  excel- 
lent sense,  it  is  wonderful  to  see  them  so  indifferent  to  the 
popular  privileges  of  the  community. 

Yet  is  this  a  sort  of  phenomenon  that  we  witness  every  day. 
Such  men  would  not  in  practice  vindicate  themselves  from 
oppression,  by  rising  up  in  arms  against  their  arbitrary  govern- 
ors ;  they  are  not  of  a  temperament  to  set  their  lives  upon  a 
cast.  What  possible  chance,  then,  have  they  for  the  security 
of  their  property,  for  the  very  freedom  of  their  persons,  above 
all,  for  the  exercise  of  their  minds,  but  the  existence  of  popu- 
lar privileges  ?  To  them,  above  all  men,  civil  freedom  is 
every  thing. 

Civil  freedom  cannot  indeed  exist  without  the  existence  at 
the  same  time  of  executive  power,  that  is,  of  prerogative.  Men 
must  be  protected  from  the  multitude.  But  surely  it  can  still 
less  exist,  without  the  existence  of  popular  privileges  ;  because 
society  must  be  protected  from  the  few,  as  well  as  from  the 
many  ;  from  the  insolence,  injustice,  and  caprice  of  the  high, 
as  of  the  low.  The  mistake  that  is  made  seems  to  be,  that  it 
is  supposed  popular  privileges  will  always  lead  to  disorder,  and 
render  the  government  insecure. 

The  very  reverse  is  the  fact  ;  so  much  so,  that  certain  privi- 
leges may  be  trusted,  not  merely  to  legislative  bodies,  men  of 
property  and  education  (which  is  the  first  and  main  point  to  be 
contended  for),  but  even  to  the  lowest  orders  of  the  people  ; 


144  LECTURE  VI. 

the  very  rabble  can  learn  to  know  how  far  they  are  to  go,  and 
with  this,  as  with  their  right,  to  be  content,  and  advance  no 
further. 

The  advantages  obtained  in  the  cheerfulness  and  vigor,  that 
are  thus  imparted  to  the  whole  political  system  of  a  country, 
are  above  all  price,  and  the  occasional  excesses  of  a  mob  are 
an  evil  trifling,  and  in  comparison  of  no  account. 

Men  of  arbitrary  or  timid  minds  WILL  not  understand  this, 
and  men  bred  under  arbitrary  governments  never  can. 

Foreigners  who  survey,  for  instance,  one  of  our  popular 
elections  at  Brentford  or  Westminster,  generally  suppose  that 
our  government  is  to  break  up  in  the  course  of  the  week,  and 
have  been  known  to  announce  to  their  correspondents  on  the 
continent,  and  even  to  their  courts,  an  approaching  revolution. 
The  mob,  in  the  mean  time,  know  very  well  the  limits  within 
which  they  may  for  a  time  disturb  the  peace  of  the  community, 
and  they  therefore  sing  their  ballads,  hoot  their  superiors,  re- 
mind them  (very  usefully)  of  their  faults  and  follies,  parade  the 
streets  and  brandish  their  bludgeons,  but  as  to  an  insurrection 
or  revolution,  no  enterprise  of  the  kind  ever  enters  into  their 
thoughts  ;  certainly  it  makes  no  part  of  their  particular  bill  of 
the  performances. 

In  a  word,  power  is  like  money  ;  men  should  be  accus- 
tomed, as  much  as  possible,  as  much  as  they  can  bear,  to  the 
handling  of  it,  that  they  may  learn  the  proper  use  of  it  :  they 
are  so,  more  or  less,  in  free  governments  ;  not  so  in  arbitrary  ; 
and  this  is  the  circumstance  which  always  constitutes  the 
insecurity  of  arbitrary  governments,  while  they  stand,  and 
the  difficulty  of  improving  them,  when  they  can  stand  no 
longer. 

Where  popular  privileges  exist,  the  monarch  can  always  dis- 
tinguish between  the  characters  of  a  lawful  sovereign  and  an 
arbitrary  ruler  ;  so  can  his  counsellors,  so  can  his  people,  these 
are  advantages  totally  invaluable.  The  world  has  nothing  to  do 
with  certainty  and  security ;  but  popular  privileges  afford  the 
best  chance  of  real  tranquillity,  strength,  and  happiness  to  all 
the  constituent  parts  of  a  body  politic,  the  monarch,  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  the  people. 

Far  from  viewing  the  popular  part  of  our  mixed  constitution 
with  the  indifference,  or  suspicion,  or  dislike,  or  hostility, 


ENGLAND.  145 

which  Mr.  Hume  and  others  seem  to  do,  nothing,  as  I  con- 
ceive, can  be  so  perfectly  reasonable  or  truly  philosophic  as 
the  interest,  the  anxiety,  the  reverence,  with  which  Millar  and 
others  have  pursued  the  history  of  the  democratic  part  of  our 
constitution  through  our  most  eventful  annals. 

Do  not  fail  to  observe  that  the  two  great  countries  of  Europe, 
France  and  England,  have  set  out  from  beginnings  much  the 
same  ;  but  France  lost  her  constitution,  and  England  not. 
How  was  this  ?  I  ask  the  student ;  and  let  him  ask,  in  his  turn, 
the  authors  I  recommend,  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  and  Hume,  and 
Rapin,  and  Blackstone,  and  above  all  Millar.  Surely  the  ques- 
tion will  not  be  an  indifferent  one  to  him.  He  deserves  not 
the  name  of  Englishman,  if  it  be. 

I  must  enter  a  little  more  into  the  subject,  though  detail  is 
impossible. 

The  three  great  points  are  always  —  1st,  What  is  the  law  ? 
2d,  Who  are  the  legislators  ?  and  lastly,  and  above  all,  What 
is  the  general  spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  in  the  community  ? 

Take,  then,  the  long  period  before  us,  from  the  departure 
of  the  Romans  to  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

1st.  What  was  the  law,  the  constitutional  law  more  par- 
ticularly, if  I  may  so  speak.  You  will  find  the  history  of  it 
given  you  in  a  manner  sufficiently  concise  and  intelligible  in 
many  parts  of  Blackstone  and  in  Millar.  You  must  mark  its 
gradual  improvements,  and  you  must  mark  them  again  and 
again,  through  different  periods,  down  to  our  own.  I  speak 
now  chiefly  of  the  first  and  fourth  volumes  of  Blackstone. 

In  former  courses  of  my  lectures,  I  had  mentioned  a  few  of 
the  principal  changes  that  took  place,  but  I  now  think  it  best 
to  refer  to  Blackstone  and  Millar,  and  to  do  no  more.  I  do 
not  occupy  your  time  with  what  you  may  better  find  else- 
where. 

But,  2dly.  Who  have  been  the  legislators  ?  This  is  a  very 
curious  part  of  our  history.  There  was  once  a  Wittenagemote, 
or  great  national  assembly.  How  was  it  constituted,  and 
what  were  its  powers  ?  But  we  have  no  such  assembly  now. 
When,  therefore,  did  it  cease  ?  and,  when  it  did  cease,  how 
came  another  assembly  to  arise  ?  —  a  parliament,  a  House  of 
Barons  or  Lords  ?  But  more  ;  we  have  now  not  only  one 
assembly,  but  two ;  not  only  a  House  of  Lords,  but  a 

VOL.    I.  19 


146  LECTURE  VI. 

House  of  Commons.  This  is  surely  still  more  extraordinary. 
The  barons,  the  aristocracy,  have  not  only  their  house  of 
assembly  ;  but  the  commonalty,  the  people,  have,  in  some 
way  or  other,  obtained  the  same.  But  how,  or  when,  or 
why  ?  Such  are  the  objects  of  inquiry  which  I  have  to  offer 
to  your  curiosity. 

I  will  first  say  a  word  on  the  origin  of  these  two  different 
houses  of  assembly. 

Secondly,  on  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  different  pre- 
rogatives and  privileges  belonging  to  each  estate,  of  king,  lords, 
and  commons. 

The  great  facts  of  this  first  subject,  those  that  you  are  es- 
pecially to  observe,  seem  to  be  these  :  — 

That  there  was  first  a  Wittenagemote,  or  great  council. 
That  this  Wittenagemote  existed  before  and  soon  after  the 
Conquest,  but  that  it  at  length  ceased,  or  the  name  was  altered 
into  that  of  parliament. 

Now,  unfortunately,  no  records  exist  of  this  Wittenagemote 
and  parliament  after  the  conquest,  so  that  we  cannot  ascer- 
tain what  were  the  qualifications  that  gave  a  seat  in  those 
assemblies,  nor  how  the  one  gradually  was  changed  into  the 
other. 

The  next  facts  are,  that  burgesses  from  the  towns  were  sum- 
moned by  Leicester,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
Third,  afterwards  by  Edward  the  First,  and  the  succeeding 
monarchs.  And  lastly,  that,  in  the  course  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  the  Third,  the  lesser  thanes  or  knights  of  the  shire  had 
been  incorporated  with  the  burgesses,  and  they  had  become 
together  a  separate  house. 

But  of  these  most  important  events,  this  rise  of  a  second 
house  of  assembly,  or  regular  estate,  and  this  mixture  of  the 
knights  of  the  shire  with  the  burgesses,  no  detail  or  history 
can  be  given  ;  no  sufficient  records  exist.  All  this  is  very 
unfortunate. 

You  will  now,  therefore,  understand  how  easily  our  anti- 
quaries and  patriots  may  dispute  on  the  origin  and  growth  of 
our  House  of  Commons.  But  on  this  subject  you  will  observe 
what  is  said  by  Gilbert  Stuart  on  the  one  side,  by  Hume 
on  the  other.  You  must  on  the  whole  be  decided,  I  think, 
by  Millar. 


ENGLAND.  147 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  but  I  may  now 
mention,  that  you  may  note  what  is  said  by  Burke,  in  his 
abridgment  of  the  English  history,  where  he  speaks  of  the 
Wittenagemote.  There  are  also  two  articles  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Review,  volume  xxvi.  in  March,  1817,  which  you 
may  consider. 

These  works  and  their  references  will  enable  you  to  go 
through  all  the  learning  connected  with  the  subject,  though  I 
conceive  the  works  themselves  will  be  quite  sufficient  for 
your  information,  quite  sufficient  to  enable  you  to  form  your 
opinion. 

I  will  give  you,  in  a  few  words,  some  idea  of  the  reason- 
ings of  these  writers. 

The  constitution,  then,  and  office  of  the  Wittenagemote 
seem  to  have  been  as  analogous  to  those  of  the  free  assemblies 
we  read  of  in  Tacitus,  as  the  different  nature  of  two  different 
though  kindred  periods  of  society  would  lead  us  to  expect. 
The  principal  powers  of  government  were  vested  in  this  great 
council.  It  decided  on  peace  and  war,  and  on  all  military 
concerns  ;  it  made  laws  ;  and  it  concurred  in  the  exercise  of 
the  royal  prerogative,  as  far  as  we  can  observe,  on  all  occa- 
sions. The  wites  or  sapientes  are  always  supposed  or  referred 
to  in  the  documents  that  have  reached  us  ;  but  who  these  wites 
or  sapientes  were,  cannot  now  be  accurately  determined,  and, 
in  the  first  place,  a  controversy  has  arisen  with  respect  to  the 
constitution  of  this  great  council,  whether  it  was  entirely  aris- 
tocratical  or  only  partly  so  ;  and  this  is  in  truth  the  dispute  of 
the  origin  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Stuart  and  others  contend,  that  the  people  had  always  their 
share  in  the  legislature,  that  they  were  even  represented  in  the 
Wittenagemote  ;  and,  to  support  this  opinion,  various  expres- 
sions are  produced  from  such  documents  as  have  come  down 
to  us:  "  Seniores,  sapientes  populi  mei,"  —  "  convocato 
communi  concilio  tarn  cleri  tarn  populi,"  —  u  praesentibus  et 
subscribentibus  archiepiscopis,  &c.  &c.,  procerumque  totius 
terra?,  aliorumque  fidelium  infinita  multitudine." 

But  to  this  it  is  replied  by  Millar,  that  these  expressions, 
if  they  prove  any  thing,  prove  too  much,  for  they  go  to  prove 
that  all  the  people,  even  those  of  the  lowest  rank,  personally 
voted  in  the  national  council.  And  it  is  urged  by  Hume, 


148  LECTUBE  VI. 

among  other  remarks,  that  the  members  of  the  Wittenagemote 
are  almost  always  called  the  principes,  magnates,  proceres, 
&c.  :  terms  which  seem  to  suppose  an  aristocracy.  That  the 
boroughs  also,  from  the  low  state  of  commerce,  were  so  small 
and  so  poor,  and  the  inhabitants  in  such  dependence  on  the 
great  men,  that  it  seems  in  no  wise  probable,  that  they  would 
be  admitted  as  part  of  the  national  council.  And  the  various 
remarks  and  arguments  of  Millar,  a  zealous  protector  of  the 
popular  part  of  our  constitution,  take  the  same  general  ground, 
and  are  on  the  whole  decisive. 

The  most  important  remark,  however,  made  by  Stuart,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  question,  is  a  reference  to  a  paper  in  the 
5th  of  Richard  the  Second.  In  the  latter  end  of  the  passage 
(to  the  former  part  a  reply  might  be  made,)  are  these  remark- 
able words  :  — 

u  And  if  any  sheriff  of  the  realm  be  from  henceforth  negli- 
gent in  making  his  returns  of  writs  of  the  parliament,  or  that  he 
leaves  out  of  the  said  returns  any  cities  or  boroughs  which  be 
bound  and  of  old  time  were  wont  to  come  to  the  parliament, 
he  shall  be  amerced,"  &c. 

Of  "  old  time,"  you  will  observe.  The  intervening  space 
of  two  or  three  reigns,  it  is  contended,  between  the  49th  of 
Henry  the  Third  and  5th  of  Richard  the  Second  (about  a 
century),  could  never  give  occasion  to  the  use  of  such  an  ex- 
pression as  "the  old  time." 

Again  :  Lord  Lyttleton  in  his  Life  of  Henry  the  Second, 
goes  through  a  very  candid  and  temperate  inquiry  into  this 
question,  and  he  thinks  the  commons  were  originally  a  part  of 
the  national  council  or  parliament.  The  strongest  evidence 
he  produces  is  drawn  from  the  two  celebrated  instances  of  the 
petitions,  sent,  one  by  the  borough  of  St.  Albans,  the  other 
by  Barnstaple. 

The  words  are  given  by  Lyttleton  in  the  petition  from  St. 
Albans  ;  they  pray  to  send  burgesses  :  "  Prout  totis  retroactis 
temporibus  venire  consueverunt,"  &c.  "  tempore  Eduardi  (I.) 
et  progenitorum  suorum." 

The  date  of  this  petition  is  1315,  in  the  time  of  Edward  the 
Second,  and  it  is  contended  that  such  words  must  mean  a  pe- 
riod before  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third,  the  supposed  origin  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  which  was  only  fifty-one  years  before  : 


ENGLAND.  149 

u  totis  retroactis  temporibus,"  &c.     It  is,  therefore,  curious 
to  observe  what  was  the  answer  made. 

The  answer  to  the  petition  was,  —  "  Scrutentur  rotuli,  si 
temporibus  progenitorum  regis,  burgenses  praedicti  solebant  ve- 
nire vel  non." 

Now  this  answer  would  be  somewhat  strange,  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third  was  the  date  of  the 
origin  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Let  the  rolls  be  searched, 
&c.  &c.,  to  find  what,  if  the  origin  of  the  commons  was  only 
fifty-one  years  back,  it  was  well  known  could  not  possibly  ex- 
ist. And  yet,  after  all,  this  might  be  the  technical  mode  of 
making  answer,  the  legal  and  formal  way  of  telling  the  petition- 
ers that  they  were  talking  nonsense. 

Again,  with  respect  to  the  second  petition,  that  from  Barn- 
staple.  Barnstaple  founds  its  rights  on  a  charter  of  Athelstan, 
which  would  have  been  again  somewhat  ridiculous,  if  these 
rights  had  been  known  (as  they  might  have  been)  to  have  origi- 
nated in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Third,  only  eighty-one  years 
before  the  time  of  this  petition  in  1345. 

Thus  we  have  three  distinct  testimonies.  The  words  of  the 
Act  of  Parliament,  the  words  u  old  time,"  in  the  time  of  Rich- 
ard the  Second,  one  hundred  and  eighteen  years  after  the  49th 
of  Henry  the  Third  ;  the  words  of  this  petition  from  Barn- 
staple,  eighty-one  years  ;  and  those  in  the  petition  from  St. 
Albans,  fifty-one  years  after. 

But  to  all  this  it  is  answered,  that  instances  maybe  produced 
where  distinct  falsehoods  are  asserted  in  petitions  to  parliament 
in  the  way  of  pretension,  when  towns  and  boroughs  are  speak- 
ing of  their  former  history,  and  that  this  may  be  the  case  in 
these  petitions  from  St.  Albans  and  Barnstable. 

The  town  said  it  had  never  been  represented  before,  though 
it  hadm  ade  before  not  less  than  twenty-two  returns. 

Dr.  Lingard  thinks  that  these  expressions  are  a  sort  of  ver- 
biage ;  so  endless  are  the  difficulties  of  this  curious  subject. 
And  you  will  also  observe  that,  first,  Spelman  could  find  no 
summons  of  a  burgess  before  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third. 

Again,  Daines  Barrington  declares,  in  a  note,  page  49  of 
his  Observations  on  the  Ancient  Statutes,  "that  no  one  can 
read  the  old  historians  and  chronicles  who  will  observe  the 
least  allusion  or  trace  of  the  commons  having  been  anciently 


150  LECTURE  VI. 

a  part  of  the  legislature,  unless  he  sits  down  with  an  intention 
of  proving  that  they  formed  a  component  part." 

And  Mr.  Burke,  in  his  English  history,  after  struggling  with 
the  subject  for  some  little  time,  observes,  —  u  All  these  things 
are,  I  think,  sufficient  to  show  of  what  a  visionary  nature  those 
systems  are,  which  would  settle  the  ancient  constitution  in  the 
most  remote  times,  exactly  in  the  same  form  in  which  we  enjoy 
it  at  this  day  ;  not  considering  that  such  mighty  changes  in 
manners,  during  so  many  ages,  always  must  produce  a  consid- 
erable change  in  laws,  and  in  the  forms  as  well  as  powers  of  all 
governments." 

On  the  whole,  the  favorers  of  the  popular  interest  would 
have  done  better,  I  think,  to  have  contented  themselves  with 
resisting  any  improper  conclusions  that  might  have  been  drawn 
against  popular  privileges,  from  the  non-appearance  of  the 
commons  in  the  Wittenagemote.  Their  absence,  for  I  think 
their  absence  must  be  admitted,  may  surely  be  accounted  for, 
without  any  prejudice  to  the  popular  cause,  and  the  propriety 
of  their  appearance  in  the  national  councils  of  a  subsequent  pe- 
riod may  in  like  manner  be  shown  without  difficulty,  on  every 
principle  of  natural  justice  and  political  expediency. 

Since  writing  the  above,  an  important  work  has  appeared  on 
the  Dark  Ages,  by  Mr.  Hallam.  The  question,  to  which  I 
have  just  alluded,  is  there  discussed  with  great  diligence,  tem- 
per, and  learning. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  general  impression,  which  you  will 
have  already  received  from  me,  will  be  altered  by  a  reference 
to  his  work,  but  you  must  by  all  means  turn  to  it,  that  all  the 
points  of  this  very  obscure,  difficult,  and  yet  curious  and  in- 
teresting case,  may  be  properly  considered,  as  they  may  be  if 
you  will  avail  yourselves  of  his  valuable  labors. 

On  the  one  side,  as  he  very  properly  observes,  it  may  be 
said,  that  the  king,  as  we  find  from  innumerable  records,  im- 
posed tallages  upon  his  demesne  towns  at  discretion.  But,  on 
the  other  side,  that  no  public  instrument,  previous  to  the  49th 
of  Henry  the  Third,  names  the  citizens  and  burgesses  as  con- 
stituent parts  of  parliament,  though  prelates,  barons,  knights, 
and  sometimes  freeholders,  are  enumerated  ;  while,  since  the 
undoubted  admission  of  the  commons  (the  49th  of  Henry  the 
Third),  they  are  almost  invariably  mentioned. 

Again,  that  no  historian  speaks  of  representatives,  or  uses 


ENGLAND.  151 

the  word  citizen  or  burgess  in  describing  those,  who  were 
present  in  parliament.  All  this  is  very  strong  ;  and  on  the 
whole,  as  it  appears  to  me,  added  to  what  you  have  heard 
from  others,  decisive  of  the  question. 

Having  thus  alluded  to  the  origin  of  our  two  different  houses 
of  assembly,  I  will  next  advert  to  the  origin  and  growth  of  the 
different  prerogatives  and  privileges  belonging  to  each  estate  of 
the  Lords  and  Commons. 

This  subject  will  require  and  deserve  your  patience  as  stu- 
dents ;  it  is  surely  very  curious.  Great  light  has  been  thrown 
upon  it  by  Professor  Millar.  Delolme  is  too  much  of  a  pane- 
gyrist on  our  constitution,  as  indeed  is  Blackstone  ;  not  to  say 
that  the  latter  is  rather  a  lawyer  than  a  constitutional  writer. 
Blackstone  is  quite  inferior  to  himself,  when  he  becomes  a  po- 
litical reasoner  ;  and  if  he  had  lived  in  our  own  times,  he  would 
not  have  written  (he  could  not  have  written,  a  man  of  such 
capacity)  in  the  vague  and  even  superficial  manner  in  which  he 
has  certainly  done  on  many  of  such  occasions  in  his  great  work 
of  the  Commentaries.  Millar  is  the  author  you  must  study,  and 
I  will  now  endeavour  to  give  you  some  notion  of  the  more  im- 
portant results  of  his  researches  ;  that  is,  I  will  endeavour  to 
give  you  some  idea  of  the  sort  of  reasoning  and  information, 
which  you  will  find  in  his  book. 

The  Wittenagemote,  under  the  influence  of  the  Conquest, 
became  in  the  first  place  more  and  more  aristocratical;  in  the 
second,  its  regular  meetings  less  and  less  frequent,  till  they 
at  last  ceased,  —  an  important  event. 

It  became  more  and  more  aristocratical,  because  the  smaller 
landed  proprietors,  in  the  progress  of  the  feudal  system, 
attached  themselves  to  the  greater  lords,  and  thus  gradually 
excluded  themselves  from  the  Wittenagemote,  where  those 
only  could  meet  and  deliberate  who  were  considered  as  equals. 
Another  reason  contributed  to  the  same  effect.  There  were 
many  lords  who,  though  they  did  not  attach  themselves  to  a 
superior  lord,  and  merge  their  consequence  in  his,  had  still  an 
"  allodial  property,"  though  less  extensive,  and  though  in- 
ferior. Such  lords  were  less  and  less  disposed  to  appear  in 
the  great  council,  because  they  were  more  and  more  likely  to 
be  overshadowed  by  the  greater  barons,  and  to  find  themselves 
and  their  opinions  disregarded.  This  difference  in  wealth  was 


152  LECTURE  VI. 

at  length  followed  by  difference  in  dignity,  and  a  man  might 
be  noble,  yet  not  one  of  the  proceres,  — not  one  (for  example) 
unless  he  had  forty  hides  of  land.  The  nobility  were  thus 
divided  into  the  greater  and  lesser  thanes,  a  distinction  that  you 
must  remember. 

2dly.  The  regular  meetings  of  the  Wittenagemote  at  last 
ceased.  An  important  point,  it  may  be  observed  ;  for  what  was 
the  result  ?  We  might  have  lost  our  legal  assemblies,  as 
France  did. 

These  regular  meetings  of  the  Wittenagemote  were  origin- 
ally held  at  Christmas,  Easter,  and  Whitsuntide.  But,  besides 
these,  there  were  also  occasional  meetings  on  extraordinary 
emergencies,  summoned  by  the  king  himself.  These  last 
became  more  frequent  with  the  increase  of  the  national  busi- 
ness ;  and  the  regular  meetings  were  of  less  consequence 
and  less  regarded,  the  more  so,  as  part  of  their  business  had 
originally  consisted  in  hearing  appeals  from  inferior  courts. 
These  appeals  had  multiplied  till  it  was  necessary  to  form 
a  separate  court  from  out  of  the  great  council,  called  the 
Aula  Regis,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  deciding  lawsuits.  In 
this  manner  a  material  office  of  the  great  council  was  super- 
seded ;  though,  as  the  Aula  Regis  originally  acted  as  a  sort 
of  deputy,  an  appeal  still  remained  in  the  last  instance  to  the 
council,  which  is  now  retained  by  the  House  of  Peers.  It 
must  also  have  been  at  all  times  the  policy  of  the  monarch  to 
supersede  the  regular  meetings  of  the  great  council  by  auxiliary 
courts,  and  by  those  meetings  which  were  summoned  by 
himself.  And  in  this  manner,  partly  from  reasons  of  apparent 
necessity  and  convenience,  partly  by  the  natural  ambition  of 
the  monarch,  partly  from  the  disorders  of  the  times,  and  not 
a  little  from  the  supineness,  ignorance,  and  want  of  concert 
among  the  barons  themselves,  the  great  council  ceased  to 
assemble  at  its  stated  periods ;  and  its  extraordinary  meetings, 
with  this  appeal  from  the  great  court  of  law,  were  all  that 
remained,  as  vestiges  of  its  former  power. 

But  these  extraordinary  meetings  could  not  take  place  unless 
called  by  the  sovereign.  It  was  possible,  therefore,  that  these 
meetings  might  at  length  have  ceased,  and  with  them  the  politi- 
cal existence  of  the  great  council  altogether. 

If  this  event  had  taken  place,  the  constitution  of  England 
would,  in  the  result,  have  been  the  same  with  that  of  France. 


ENGLAND.  153 

This  was,  however,  most  fortunately  not  the  case.  But 
why  not  ?  It  was  thus  :  —  William  had  introduced  the  feudal 
system,  and  those  who  held  immediately  of  the  crown  became, 
in  consequence,  members  of  the  great  national  council. 

Now,  the  labors  of  our  antiquaries  have  informed  us,  from 
the  examination  of  "  Domesday  Book,"  that  these  immediate 
vassals  scarcely  exceeded  the  number  of  six  hundred  ;  and, 
as  they  therefore  held  the  territory  of  all  England,  with  the 
exception  of  the  three  northern  counties  of  the  king's  own 
domains,  each  baron  must  have  been  very  powerful  ;  and  it 
is  evident  that  the  king  must  have  found  it  always  expedient 
to  avoid  their  displeasure,  and  to  secure  their  assistance  ;  and 
therefore,  to  have  recourse  to  them  for  their  advice,  or  rather 
for  their  public  concurrence  in  the  great  measures  of  his  gov- 
ernment. 

These  national  councils  were,  therefore,  very  fortunately 
for  posterity,  never  without  their  use  or  importance  to  the 
Norman  kings  ;  they,  therefore,  often  called  these  extraordi- 
nary meetings.  But  again,  to  the  more  frequent  return  of 
these  occasional  meetings,  and  consequently  to  the  existence 
of  the  national  council,  there  was  another  circumstance  very 
favorable. 

The  crown  was  not  transmitted,  as  in  France,  for  many 
centuries,  from  son  to  son.  Most  of  the  Norman  kings  were 
usurpers,  —  William  the  Second  ;  Henry  the  First  ;  Stephen. 
Even  Henry  the  Second  obtained  possession  of  the  crown 
only  after  a  compromise.  John  was  again  a  usurper,  and  even 
in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second,  of  Richard  the  First,  and 
Henry  the  Third,  the  great  councils  were  continually  appealed 
to,  from  the  circumstances  in  which  these  monarchs  were 
placed. 

In  this  manner  (most  happily  for  England,  and  indeed  for 
mankind)  the  assembly  of  the  nation  still  made  though  not  its 
regular,  yet  its  occasional  appearance,  and  with  sufficient  fre- 
quency to  maintain  its  place  in  the  legislature. 

Again.  It  is  known  that  the  Wittenagemote  had  originally 
consisted  of  allodial  or  independent  proprietors.  That  these 
had  not  only  gradually  diminished,  but  it  was  the  policy  of  the 
Conqueror  to  extinguish  all  the  allodial  tenures,  and  to  render 

VOL.   i.  20 


154  LECTURE  VI. 

all  the  proprietors  of  land,  vassals  of  the  crown.  That  this 
in  the  twentieth  year  of  his  reign  he  at  last  effected  ;  and  that 
the  great  council  was  thus  entirely  altered,  and  came  to  consist 
of  those  only  who  held  immediately  from  the  crown.  Our 
antiquaries  have  also  furnished  sufficient  evidence  to  show 
that  great  councils  were  held  by  William  the  Conqueror, 
William  Rufus,  and  the  succeeding  monarchs ;  so  that  on  the 
whole  it  may  be  allowed,  that  the  interests  of  the  crown  so 
operated,  that  in  point  of  fact,  the  national  assemblies  did 
maintain  their  existence,  and  did  occasionally  meet.  And 
here  the  student  must  again  observe  how  nice  are  the  issues  on 
which  the  political  privileges  of  a  nation  are  to  depend. 

We  have  here  a  great  difficulty,  for  observe,  — it  certainly 
would  not  have  been  for  the  good  of  the  whole  that  the  great 
councils  should  assemble  whenever  they  themselves  chose  ; 
nor  even,  perhaps,  of  right  at  stated  times,  as  they  had  done 
before  the  Conquest.  It  might  be  even  desirable  that  the 
sovereign  alone  should  have  the  power  of  calling  them  to- 
gether :  but  if  this  power  was  to  be  exercised  merely  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  monarch,  and  if  he  was  not,  in  some  way  or 
other,  to  be  laid  under  the  necessity  of  occasionally  meeting 
the  national  assemblies,  arbitrary  power  must  have  been  the 
consequence.  And  yet  a  principle  so  delicate  as  this,  was 
to  be  left  to  the  arbitration  of  the  rude  warfare  and  undiscern- 
ing  passions  of  our  ancestors. 

There  were  other  points  not  less  delicate  and  important, 
that  were  now  adjusted  apparently  with  little  foresight  or  anx- 
iety about  the  consequences.  I  shall  mention  them  as  I  men- 
tioned the  last,  from  my  wish  to  offer  you  specimens  of  the 
subject  now  before  you,  and  with  a  hope  of  attracting  your 
curiosity. 

The  Wittenagemote,  from  its  origin  and  nature,  had  always 
decided  on  peace  and  war  :  but,  the  moment  the  members  of 
it  became  vassals  of  the  crown,  their  military  service  became 
due  to  their  lord  whenever  required  ;  and  the  justice  or  wis- 
dom of  the  contest  was  no  longer  any  part  of  their  concern. 

The  important  prerogative  of  declaring  peace  or  war  was 
thus  at  once  transferred  to  the  crown  :  with  the  crown  it  has 
ever  since  remained  ;  not  that  circumstances  are  the  same,  — 
not  that  any  national  council  has  ever  deliberated  upon  the 


ENGLAND.  155 

subject  ;  such  deliberations  upon  such  points  are  impossible  ; 
but  because  a  prerogative  like  this  once  enjoyed,  was  too  im- 
portant to  be  willingly  resigned,  and  could  not  forcibly  be  taken 
away.  Whether  expedient  or  not,  it  has,  therefore,  been  trans- 
mitted as  an  inheritance  of  the  crown  ;  and  any  restraint  or 
control,  it  is  to  meet  with,  must  arise  from  causes  that  have 
grown  up  into  importance  as  imperceptibly  as  did  the  preroga- 
tive itself. 

So  fortunate  may  every  people  justly  esteem  themselves, 
who  are  possessed  of  a  form  of  government,  which  is  in  prac- 
tice tolerably  good  ;  for  the  affairs  of  mankind  have  but  little 
to  do  with  the  precision  of  theory,  or  the  inferences  of  rea- 
soning. 

Taxation,  in  like  manner,  was  a  most  important  prerogative 
of  the  Wittenagemote.  Fortunately  for  posterity  it  was  not 
lost.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the  crown  had  immense  domains 
and  a  large  revenue  of  its  own,  and  therefore  did  not  find  it  en- 
tirely necessary  to  attempt  the  usurpation  of  the  power  of  tax- 
ation. And  secondly,  the  injury  which  the  barons  sustained 
by  paying  money  could  be  understood  by  them  without  any 
great  political  foresight  or  comprehension  of  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  government. 

The  obtaining  of  money  from  the  subject  was,  at  that  time, 
very  fortunately  for  us,  an  exercise  of  occasional  oppression 
and  force,  rather  than  a  regular  operation  of  legislative  author- 
ity. 

Finally,  upon  extraordinary  occasions,  the  king  really  did 
apply  to  his  subjects,  to  his  vassals,  for  an  aid,  which  was  a 
condition  of  their  feudal  tenure.  In  lieu  of  military  service, 
he  received  a  pecuniary  composition  called  a  scutage.  From 
the  soccage  vassals  a  payment  called  a  hydage^  in  place  of  va- 
rious services  which,  as  agricultural  tenants,  they  were  bound 
to  render  him.  From  the  inhabitants  of  towns,  tolls,  and  du- 
ties, or  tallages,  in  return  for  his  protection  ;  and  from  traders 
certain  duties  called  customs  on  the  transit  of  goods. 

In  this  manner  was  the  crown  placed  in  a  state  of  compara- 
tive opulence  and  independence  during  the  earlier  eras  of  our 
constitution.  As  these  sources  of  revenue  declined,  the  other 
branches  of  the  legislature  were  advancing  into  strength. 
They  were  thus  able,  by  a  continued  struggle,  to  prevent  these 


156  LECTURE  VI. 

privileges  from  being  converted  into  fixed  oppression,  and  to 
maintain  the  right  which  it  was  so  desirable  they  should  alone 
exercise,  of  concurring  with  the  crown  before  the  community 
could  be  legally  taxed.  It  were  endless,  at  least  it  is  not 
very  possible  in  lectures  like  these,  to  pursue  the  subject  of 
the  formation  of  our  legislature  through  all  its  parts,  or  to 
describe  the  origin  of  different  constitutional  privileges  and 
prerogatives. 

You  may  judge  of  the  interest  belonging  to  these  discus- 
sions, I  hope,  from  what  I  have  already  said.  I  had  indeed 
put  down  other  specimens  of  the  subject,  but  I  am  obliged, 
for  want  of  time,  to  omit  them.  My  observations  referred  to 
what  I  thought  the  important  points,  and  which  I  must  now 
finally  recommend  to  your  attention  ;  for  instance,  the  addition 
that  was  made  to  the  national  assembly  by  the  representatives 
of  the  boroughs  :  the  separation  of  the  whole  into  two  houses ; 
a  most  important  point  :  how  the  lesser  barons,  the  knights  of 
the  shire  originally  belonging  to  the  upper,  fell  into  the  lower 
house  ;  how  the  House  of  Commons  probably  thus  maintained 
its  consequence,  if  not  its  existence  ;  how  the  House  of  Com- 
mons obtained  a  paramount  and  almost  exclusive  influence  over 
the  taxation  of  the  country.  None  of  these  happy  events  took 
place  in  the  constitution  of  France,  or  other  European  govern- 
ments. You  will  find  them  explained  often  with  great  success 
by  Millar.  But  you  must  not  forget  the  learned  and  very  val- 
uable work  of  Mr.  Hallam  ;  who  is  not  always  satisfied  with 
Millar,  and  should  have  stated  his  objections  more  in  the  detail 
to  a  writer  so  respectable  and  so  popular.  Nor,  again,  must  you 
omit  to  study  the  pages  of  Sir  J.  Mackintosh's  history.  This 
lecture,  and  all  the  lectures  of  my  two  first  courses,  were  drawn 
up  many  years  before  the  appearance  of  either  of  these  impor- 
tant publications. 

I  must  now  pass  on  to  the  third  part  which  I  have  announced 
to  you,  as  one  even  of  more  importance  than  the  former  two. 
The  first,  you  will  remember,  was,  What  are  the  laws  ?  the 
second,  Who  are  the  legislators  ?  But  the  third,  to  which 
I  now  allude  is,  —  the  spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  that  exist 
in  the  country. 

Of  our  country,  if  it  be  said  that  none  has  ever  enjoyed  a 
better  constitution,  it  may  at  the  same  time  be  said,  that  none 


ENGLAND.  157 

has  ever  been  more  honorably  distinguished  by  efforts  to  ob- 
tain it.  In  considering  the  events  of  the  earlier  periods  of  our 
history,  the  student  should  never  lose  sight  of  the  feudal  system 
and  the  papal  power.  These,  in  the  instance  of  our  own  coun- 
try, as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  soon  became  the  great  impedi- 
ments to  the  improvement  of  human  happiness. 

But  there  was  a  peculiarity  in  the  case  of  England,  which 
was  attended  with  important  consequences.  The  feudal  system 
had  not  proceeded  by  its  own  natural  gradations  ;  it  had  not 
been  regularly  introduced,  but  it  had  been  established  by  the 
Conqueror  violently,  and  on  a  sudden,  in  its  last  stage  of  op- 
pression. 

In  an  earlier  and  milder  state  it  seems  to  have  existed  in 
its  principles,  if  not  in  its  name  and  ceremonies,  among  the 
Anglo  Saxons  ;  but  it  did  not  in  this  island  attain  its  final 
maturity  by  regular  growth,  as  it  had  done  in  the  rest  of 
Europe.  And  this  acceleration  of  the  system,  that  seemed, 
at  first,  to  be  more  than  usually  fatal  to  every  hope  of  liberty, 
was  in  the  event  much  otherwise. 

The  Saxon  constitution  was  broken  in  upon  when  in  a  state 
of  great  comparative  freedom.  It  was  necessarily  regretted  by 
all  to  whom  it  had  been  ever  known,  its  practices  were  in  part 
retained,  its  praises  transmitted,  its  memory  cherished  ;  and  it 
became  at  length  dear  even  to  the  Normans,  who  began  to  con- 
sider themselves  as  belonging  to  the  island  ;  and  who  were 
oppressed  by  the  rigors  of  the  system,  which  their  own  king  and 
countrymen  had  established. 

Now  it  is  to  that  spirit  and  those  habits  of  thinking  that 
were  thus  inherited  from  the  Anglo  Saxon  government  and 
introduced  into  the  character  of  the  Norman  conquerors,  that 
we  are  so  much  indebted,  when  we  speak  of  the  superiority  of 
our  constitution  and  the  merits  of  our  ancestors.  Our  history 
shows  a  continued  struggle  between  the  crown  and  the  barons, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  constantly  speaks  of  the  unwearied 
clamors  of  the  nation  ;  first  for  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, and  afterwards  for  the  charters  that  were  obtained  from 
our  unwilling  monarchs. 

It  is  to  these  clamors  for  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, it  is  to  these  charters  thus  bargained  for,  or  extorted, 
that  I  would  wish  to  direct  your  attention.  It  is  here  you 


158  LECTURE  VI. 

are  to  find  the  proper  object  of  your  admiration,  the  free  prin- 
ciples of  your  mixed  constitution,  the  original  source  of  that 
free  spirit  which  distinguishes  your  own  English  character  ;  for 
observe,  to  take  a  familiar  instance,  when  a  rich  man  walks  our 
streets  or  villages,  he  will  not  offend  a  poor  man,  however  poor, 
if  he  has  the  feelings  of  an  Englishman  within  him  ;  in  like  man- 
ner, if  a  poor  man  be  struck  or  insulted,  he  will  immediately 
tell  his  oppressor,  that,  though  poor,  he  is  an  Englishman,  and 
will  not  be  trampled  upon. 

Now  these  are  most  honorable  and  totally  invaluable 
traits  of  national  character,  not  to  be  found  in  other  countries 
in  Europe  :  in  spite  of  our  immense  system  of  taxation  and 
other  unfortunate  circumstances,  they  still  to  a  considerable 
degree  exist. 

The  problem  I  propose  to  you  is  to  give  an  historical  and 
philosophical  explanation  of  them. 

In  the  first  place  then,  (and  to  look  up  to  the  highest  point 
of  their  origin,)  they  were  derived  from  our  Saxon  ancestors, 
and  afterwards  from  our  Norman  ancestors,  and,  therefore,  at 
present  I  would  wish  to  attract  your  curiosity  to  the  two  sub- 
jects I  have  just  mentioned,  the  Laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor 
and  the  Charters. 

But  when  we  turn  to  look  at  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, we  meet  with  a  most  uncomfortable  disappointment,  — 
the  laws  are  lost.  All  the  notion  that  can  now  be  formed  of 
them  must  be  derived,  as  it  is  supposed,  from  the  maxims  of 
the  common  law,  such  as  it  is  received  and  transmitted  from 
age  to  age  by  our  courts  and  judges. 

Great  pains  were  taken  by  the  illustrious  Selden  to  discover 
these  celebrated  laws,  but  in  vain.  In  the  note  book  on  the 
table,  you  will  find  a  short  account  of  his  labors  ;  which,  as  a 
concise  specimen  of  what  the  researches  of  an  antiquary,  and 
even  of  a  constitutional  writer,  must  often  be,  I  would  recom- 
mend you  to  read. 

With  respect  to  the  charters  (the  second  subject  I  men- 
tioned,) we  have  been  more  fortunate  ;  we  may  consider 
ourselves  as  in  possession  of  them  ;  and  they  have  been  made 
accessible,  not  only  to  the  learning  of  an  antiquary,  but  to 
the  knowledge  of  every  man  of  ordinary  education  ;  this  has 
been  done  by  Blackstone.  "  There  is  no  transaction,"  says 


ENGLAND.  159 

Blackstone,  "  in  the  ancient  part  of  our  history  more  inter- 
esting and  important  than  the  rise  and  progress,  the  gradual 
mutation,  and  final  establishment  of  the  charters  and  liberties, 
emphatically  styled  the  '  Great  Charter  and  Charter  of  the 
Forest  ; '  and  yet  there  is  none  that  has  been  transmitted 
down  to  us  with  less  accuracy  and  historical  precision."  The 
Vinerian  professor  was  therefore  animated  to  undertake  an 
authentic  and  correct  edition  of  the  Great  Charter  and  Charter 
of  the  Forest,  with  some  other  auxiliary  charters,  statutes,  and 
corroborating  instruments,  carefully  printed  from  the  originals 
themselves,  or  from  contemporary  enrolments  or  records  :  the 
work  he  executed  and  delivered  to  the  public. 

Of  his  "  History  of  the  Charters,"  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt 
any  abridgment ;  for  such  is  the  precision  of  his  taste,  and 
such  the  importance  of  the  subject,  that  there  is  not  a  sen- 
tence in  the  composition  that  is  not  necessary  to  the  whole, 
and  that  should  not  be  perused.  Whatever  other  works  may 
be  read  slightly,  or  omitted,  this  is  one  the  entire  meditation 
of  which  can  in  no  respect  be  dispensed  with.  The  claims 
which  it  has  on  our  attention  are  of  no  common  nature. 

The  labor  which  this  eminent  lawyer  has  bestowed  on  the 
subject  is  sufficiently  evident  :  yet,  however  distinguished  for 
high  endowments  and  extensive  acquirements,  and  however 
impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  a 
free  government,  he  has  certainly  never  been  considered  as 
a  writer  very  particularly  anxious  for  the  popular  part  of  the 
constitution,  notwithstanding  his  occasional  very  crude  decla- 
mations of  a  popular  nature  :  and,  on  the  whole,  these  char- 
ters must  have  been  very  instrumentul  in  saving  our  country 
from  the  establishment  of  arbitrary  power,  or  they  would  never 
have  excited  in  the  professor  such  extraordinary  exertion  and 
respect. 

In  the  second  place,  we  may  surely  be  expected  to  con- 
sider, with  some  attention,  what  our  ancestors  acquired  with 
such  difficulty  and  danger,  and  maintained  with  such  unshaken 
courage  and  perseverance. 

"  These  charters,"  says  Blackstone,  "  from  their  first  con- 
cession under  King  John,  had  been  often  endangered,  and 
undergone  many  mutations  for  the  space  of  near  a  century, 


160  LECTURE  VI. 

but  were  fixed  in  the  29th  of  Edward  the  Second,  upon  an 
eternal  basis  ;  having,  in  all,  before  and  since  this  time,  as  Sir 
Edward  Coke  observes,  been  established,  confirmed,  and 
commanded  to  be  put  in  execution  by  two  and  thirty  several 
acts  of  parliament." 

There  is  a  commentary  on  Magna  Charta  at  the  close  of 
Sullivan's  Lectures  on  the  Laws  of  England,  which  will  be 
very  serviceable  to  you 'in  your  perusal  of  this  great  record  of 
our  liberties. 

My  comments  on  these  charters,  given  in  my  former  course, 
I  now  omit.  For  these  charters  must  be  read  attentively  by 
yourselves,  and  you  will  easily  acquire  a  proper  insight  into  the 
nature  of  their  provisions. 

The  result  of  your  first  perusal  will  be  that  of  disappoint- 
ment ;  you  will  think  that  they  contain  nothing  very  remark- 
able, nothing  much  connected  with  civil  liberty,  as  you  now 
understand  and  enjoy  it. 

This  gives  me  another  opportunity  (I  cannot  avail  myself 
too  often  of  such  opportunities)  to  remind  you,  that  you  must 
always  identify  yourselves  with  those  who  appear  before  you, 
from  time  to  time,  in  the  pages  of  history  :  this  is  the  first 
point.  And  that  it  is  the  general  spirit  and  meaning  of  the 
whole  of  a  constitutional  transaction,  not  the  minute  detail  of 
it,  that  you  must  always  more  particularly  consider  :  this  is 
the  second  point. 

To  advert  to  these  points  a  little  longer.  —  When  we  look 
into  these  charters  for  those  provisions  of  civil  liberty  which 
the  enlarged  and  enlightened  view  of  a  modern  statesman  might 
suggest,  we  forget  that  they  who  obtained  these  charters  were 
feudal  lords,  struggling  with  their  feudal  sovereign  ;  and  that 
more  was,  in  fact,  performed  than  could  be  reasonably  ex- 
pected ;  at  all  events  they  had  the  obvious  merit  of  resisting 
oppression  ;  a  conduct  that  is  always  respectable,  as  it  always 
indicates  a  sense  of  right  and  courage. 

The  exertion  of  such  qualities  is  of  use  generally  to  the 
existing  generation,  and  still  more  to  posterity.  No  such 
steadiness  and  spirit  was  shown  by  the  barons  of  other  coun- 
tries ;  and  this  of  itself  is  a  sufficient  criterion  of  the  merit 
of  the  English  barons.  The  plain  narrative  of  these  trans- 
actions is,  of  itself,  the  best  comment  on  their  conduct, 


ENGLAND.  161 

and  its  highest  praise.  That  the  barons  should  be  jealous  of 
their  own  powers  and  comforts,  when  they  found  them  trenched 
upon  by  the  monarch,  may  have  been  natural  ;  that  they 
should  assert  their  cause  by  an  appeal  to  arms,  may  have  been 
the  character  of  the  age  ;  that  they  should  resist  and  overpower 
such  princes  as  Henry  or  John,  was  perhaps  what  might  have 
been  expected.  In  all  this  there  may  possibly  not  be  thought 
any  very  superior  merit  ;  but  there  is  still  merit,  and  merit  of 
a  most  valuable  kind.  To  maintain,  however,  a  struggle  sys- 
tematically, and  for  many  succeeding  ages,  was  neither  nat- 
ural, nor  the  character  of  the  age  ;  and  to  have  encountered 
and  overpowered  the  rage,  the  authority,  and  the  ability  of  a 
prince  like  Edward  the  First,  so  fitted  in  every  respect  to 
dazzle  and  seduce,  deceive  and  subdue  them,  this  constitutes  a 
merit  which  in  other  countries  had  no  parallel,  and  which  leaves 
us  no  sentiment  but  that  of  gratitude,  no  criticism  but  that  of 
applause. 

But  in  addition  to  these  general  remarks,  one  more  partic- 
ular observation  must  be  left  with  you,  and  it  is  this,  —  that 
in  the  course  of  these  charters  (if  they  are  properly  examined), 
it  will  at  length  be  seen,  that  all  the  leading  objects  of  na- 
tional concern  were  adverted  to  ;  that  the  outlines  of  a  sys- 
tem of  civil  liberty  were  actually  traced.  Provision  was  made 
for  the  protection  and  independence  of  the  church  ;  the  gen- 
eral privileges  of  trade  were  considered  ;  the  general  rights  of 
property  ;  the  civil  liberties  of  the  subject  ;  the  administration 
of  justice. 

It  may  indeed  be  remarked,  that  the  provisions  for  general 
liberty  in  these  charters  were  few,  short,  indistinct,  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  suppose,  that  a  few  words  like  these  could 
in  any  respect  embrace  all  the  multiplied  relations  of  social 
life  and  regular  government  ;  and  that  much  more  must  be 
done  before  the  liberties  of  mankind  can  be  secured,  or  even 
delineated  or  described  with  proper  accuracy  and  effect. 
Where,  then,  it  may  again  be  urged,  where  is  now  the  value  of 
these  celebrated  charters  ?  To  this  it  must  be  replied,  that  a 
rude  sketch  was  made  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
times  ;  and  that  nothing  more  could  be  accomplished  or  ex- 
pected ;  that  a  reasonable  theory,  that  a  right  principle,  was 
everywhere  produced  and  enforced  ;  and  that  this  was  suffi- 

VOL.  i.  21 


162  LECTURE    VI. 

cient.  Posterity  was  left,  no  doubt,  to  imitate  those  who  had 
gone  before  them,  by  transfusing  the  general  meaning  of  the 
whole  into  statutes,  accommodated  to  the  new  exigencies  that 
might  arise.  It  was  not  necessary  that  they  who  were  to  fol- 
low should  tread  precisely  in  the  same  steps  ;  but  they  were  to 
bear  themselves  erect,  and  walk  after  the  same  manner.  The 
track  might  be  altered,  but  the  port  and  the  march  were  to  be 
the  same.  Such  indeed  was  the  event.  In  Hampden's  cause 
of  ship  money,  and  on  every  occasion,  when  the  liberties 
of  the  subject  were  to  be  asserted,  —  in  writing,  in  speeches, 
in  parliament,  in  the  courts  of  law,  —  these  charters  were 
produced,  examined,  and  illustrated;  and  they  supplied  the 
defenders  of  our  best  interests  at  all  times  with  the  spirit  and 
the  materials  of  their  virtuous  eloquence.  Civil  liberty  had 
got  a  creed  which  was  to  be  learned  and  studied  by  its  votaries, 
a  creed  to  which  the  eyes  of  all  were  to  be  turned  with  rever- 
ence ;  which  the  subject  considered  as  his  birthright  ;  which 
the  monarch  received  from  his  predecessors  as  the  constitution 
of  the  land  ;  which  the  one  thought  it  his  duly  to  maintain,  and 
which  the  other  thought  it  no  derogation  to  his  dignity  to  ac- 
knowledge. 

u  It  must  be  confessed,"  says  Hume,  "  that  the  former  arti- 
cles of  the  great  charter  contain  such  mitigations  and  explana- 
tions of  the  feudal  law  as  are  reasonable  and  equitable  ;  and 
that  the  latter  involve  all  the  chief  outlines  of  a  legal  govern- 
ment and  provide  for  the  equal  distribution  of  justice,  and  the 
free  enjoyment  of  property  ;  the  great  objects  for  which  politi- 
cal society  was  at  first  founded  by  men  ;  which  the  people  have 
a  perpetual  and  unalienable  right  to  recall,  and  which  no  time, 
nor  precedent,  nor  statute,  nor  positive  institution  ought  to 
deter  them  from  keeping  ever  uppermost  in  their  thoughts  and 
attention." 

At  the  close  of  the  subject,  though  he  resumes  his  natural 
hesitation  and  circumspection,  he  seems  considerably  subdued 
by  the  merit  of  the  actors  in  these  memorable  transactions. 

"  Thus,"  says  he,  "  after  the  contests  of  near  a  whole  cen- 
tury, and  those  ever  accompanied  with  violent  jealousies,  often 
with  public  convulsions,  the  great  charter  was  finally  estab- 
lished, and  the  English  nation  have  the  honor  of  extorting, 
by  their  perseverance,  this  concession  from  the  ablest,  the 


ENGLAND.  1 63 

most  warlike,  and  the  most  ambitious  of  all  their  princes. 
Though  arbitrary  practices  often  prevailed,  and  were  even  able 
to  establish  themselves  into  settled  customs,  the  validity  of  the 
great  charter  was  never  afterwards  formally  disputed  ;  and  that 
grant  was  still  regarded  as  the  basis  of  English  government,  and 
the  sure  rule  by  which  the  authority  of  every  custom  was  to  be 
tried  and  canvassed.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  star-chamber, 
martial  law,  imprisonment  by  warrants  from  the  privy  council, 
and  other  practices  of  a  like  nature,  though  established  for  sev- 
eral centuries,  were  scarcely  ever  allowed  by  the  English  to  be 
parts  of  their  constitution.  The  affection  of  the  nation  for  lib- 
erty still  prevailed  over  all  precedent,  and  even  all  political 
reasoning.  The  exercise  of  these  powers,  after  becoming  the 
source  of  secret  murmurs  among  the  people,  was  in  fulness  of 
time  abolished  as  illegal,  at  least  as  oppressive,  by  the  whole 
legislative  authority." 

These  appear  to  me  remarkable  passages  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  Hume,  and  I  therefore  offer  them  to  your  notice. 

You  will  find  Hallatn  very  decisive  in  his  opinion  of  the  value 
of  this  great  charter.  He  considers  it  as  the  most  important 
event  in  our  history,  except  the  Revolution  in  1688,  without 
which  its  benefits  would  rapidly  have  been  annihilated. 

Before  I  conclude,  I  must  once  more  remind  you,  that  it  is 
the  general  spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  in  a  community  that  are 
all  in  all ;  that  charters,  and  statutes,  and  judges,  and  courts  of 
law,  are  all  of  no  avail  for  perpetuating  a  constitution,  or  even 
for  securing  the  regular  administration  of  its  blessings  from  time 
to  time,  —  all  are  of  no  avail,  if  a  vital  principle  does  not  ani- 
mate the  mass,  and  if  there  be  not  sufficient  intelligence  and 
spirit  in  the  community  to  be  anxious  about  its  own  happiness 
and  dignity,  its  laws  and  government,  and  those  provisions  and 
forms  in  both,  which  are  favorable  to  its  liberties.  When  this 
vital  principle  exists,  every  defect  is  supplied  from  time  to 
time  by  those  who  bear  rule,  and  who  can  never  be  long  or 
materially  at  a  loss  to  know  what  either  Magna  Charta  or  the 
free  maxims  of  our  constitution  require  from  them.  However 
complicated  may  be  the  business,  however  new  the  situations 
for  which  they  have  to  provide,  the  outline  of  a  free  constitu- 
tion, though  rude  and  imperfect,  can  easily  be  filled  up  by  those 
who  labor  in  the  spirit  of  the  original  masters. 


164  LECTURE  VI. 

When  this  is  honorably  done,  and  when  the  spirit  and  vital 
principle  of  a  constitution  are  faithfully  preserved,  those  who 
rule,  and  those  who  are  governed,  may  and  do  sympathize  with 
each  other.  They  are  no  longer  drawn  out  and  divided  into 
ranks  of  hostility,  open  or  concealed  ;  there  is  no  storm  above 
ground,  no  hollow  murmuring  below.  The  public  good  be- 
comes a  principle,  acknowledged  by  the  monarch  as  his  rule  of 
government,  and  loyalty  is  properly  cherished  by  the  subject, 
as  one  of  the  indispensable  securities  of  his  own  political  happi- 
ness. Men  are  taught  to  respect  each  other,  and  to  respect 
themselves.  The  lowest  man  in  society  is  furnished  with  his 
own  appropriate  sentiment  of  honor,  which  in  him,  as  in  his 
superiors,  is  to  protect  and  animate  his  sense  of  duty  :  he,  too, 
like  those  above  him,  has  his  degradations  of  character,  to 
which  he  will  not  stoop  :  and  his  elevations  of  virtue,  to  which 
he  must  aspire. 

This  is  that  real  protection  to  a  state,  that  source  of  all 
national  prosperity,  that  great  indispensable  auxiliary  to  the 
virtue  and  even  the  religion  of  a  country,  which  may  well  be 
considered  as  the  mark  of  every  good  government,  for  it  con- 
stitutes the  perfection  of  the  best. 

But  all  this  must  be  the  work,  not  of  those  who  are  placed 
low  in  the  gradations  of  the  social  order,  but  of  those  who  are 
destined,  by  whatever  advantages  of  property,  rank,  and  par- 
ticularly of  high  office,  to  have  authority  over  their  fellow 
creatures  ;  of  such  men  (men  like  yourselves)  it  is  the  bounden 
duty  to  cherish  the  constitutional  spirit  of  their  country,  and,  in 
one  word,  to  promote  and  protect  the  respectability  of  the  poor 
man.  When  those  who  are  so  elevated  use  to  such  purposes 
the  influence  and  the  command  which  do  and  ought  to  belong 
to  them,  they  employ  themselves  in  a  manner  the  most  grateful 
to  their  feelings,  if  they  are  men  of  benevolence  and  virtue  ; 
the  most  creditable  to  their  talents,  if  they  are  men  of  genius 
and  understanding. 


NOTES. 


IN  reading  these  Lectures  on  the  subject  of  England,  I  took  occasion  to 
introduce  the  following  remarks. 

I. 

\VE  are  now  in  possession  of  some  valuable  publications  from  the  pen  of 
Sir  James  Mackintosh  on  the  subject  of  English  history. 

These  octavo  volumes  are  intended  by  the  editor  for  the  general  reader, 
and  are  proposed  as  a  sort  of  popular  history. 

But  the  fact  is,  that  the  mind  of  this  eminent  man  of  letters  is  of  too  phi- 
losophic a  nature,  too  generalizing,  and  too  enlightened,  to  admit  of  his 
writing  for  any  one  who  can  be  described  by  any  such  term  as  the  general 
reader.  These  are  not  books,  unassuming  as  they  may  look,  that  he  who 
runs  may  read, —  he  who  reads  must  move  slowly  and  stop  often.  Sir 
James  is  one  who  necessarily  thinks  in  a  manner,  that  however  it  may  after- 
wards reward,  will  assuredly  first  require,  the  best  thinking  of  any  man, 
who  means  to  be  benefited  by  what  he  reads. 

I  must  mention  too  that  there  is  an  air  of  uncertainty  about  the  pages  of 
these  little  volumes,  that  renders  them  very  agreeable.  It  is  evidently  quite 
impossible  to  know,  as  we  proceed,  what  we  are  next  to  find  ;  that  is,  what 
a  man,  so  enlightened  and  so  able,  may  think  it  worth  his  while  to  observe. 

We  shall  probably  lose  the  great  work  which  Sir  James  projected  as  a 
continuation  of  Hume  :  this  on  every  account  is  for  ever  to  be  lamented  ;  no 
one  ever  had  access  to  such  materials,  or  was  so  fitted  to  use  them ;  but  the 
present  cabinet  volumes  will  no  doubt  present  to  us  the  most  valuable  com- 
ments, on  the  most  important  characters  and  periods  of  our  history,  —  but 
these  are  treatises  on  history,  not  histories. 

Since  I  wrote  what  you  have  just  heard,  this  illustrious  man  of  letters  has 
sunk  into  the  grave,  from  a  slight  accident  and  immaturely.  No  loss  can 
be  so  great  to  the  literary  world.  His  understanding  was  of  so  superior  a 
quality,  his  memory  so  astonishing,  and  his  disposition  so  truly  courteous 
and  obliging,  that  he  was  always  able  and  always  willing  to  instruct  every 
person  who  approached  him.  And  on  every  occasion  his  entire  sympathy 
with  the  great  interests  of  mankind,  and  his  enlightened  comprehension  of 
them  were  distinctly  marked.  He  was  one  of  those,  whom,  for  the  benefit 
of  others,  one  could  have  wished  exempt  from  the  common  lot  of  humanity. 
One  could  have  said  to  him,  as  do  the  Persians  to  their  king,  "  Live  for 
ever."  He  should  have  been  exempted  too  from  the  common  cares  of  our 
existence,  and  instead  of  having  to  make  provision  for  the  day  that  was 
going  over  him,  should  have  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  read,  to  think,  and  to 
write.  Men  of  these  great  intellectual  powers,  should  not,  like  their  fabled 
prototype,  be  chained  to  their  rock  with  the  vultures  to  tear  them. 


166  NOTES. 

Some  papers  remain,  which  will  afford  a  melancholy  indication  of  what 
under  favorable  circumstances  he  might  have  done  :  what  he  has  however 
done  is  of  great  value  and  will  live.  He  can  be  properly  estimated  only  by 
those  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  know  him. 


II. 

OF  Mr.  Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  I  spoke  in  the  following  manner 
in  my  lectures  in  November,  1828. 

Mr.  Hallam's  Constitutional  History  of  England  I  must  earnestly  recom- 
mend, for  it  is  a  work  of  great  research,  great  ability,  great  impartiality, 
often  of  very  manly  eloquence ;  the  work  of  an  enlightened  lawyer,  an 
accomplished  scholar,  and  a  steady  assertor  of  the  best  interests  of  mankind. 
It  is  a  source  of  great  satisfaction  to  me,  that  such  a  work  exists,  for  every 
page  is  full  of  statements  and  opinions  on  every  topic  and  character  of  con- 
sequence since  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh  ;  and  these  sentiments  and 
opinions  are  so  learned  and  well  reasoned,  that  I  am  quite  gratified  to  think, 
that  the  student  can  now  never  want  a  guide  and  an  instructor,  worthy  to 
conduct  and  counsel  him  in  his  constitutional  inquiries.  Mr.  Hallain  is 
indeed  a  stern  and  severe  critic,  and  the  student  may  be  allowed  to  love  and 
honor  many  of  our  patriots,  statesmen,  and  divines,  in  a  more  warm  and 
unqualified  manner,  than  does  Mr.  Hallam  ;  but  the  perfect  calmness  of  Mr. 
Hallam's  temperament,  makes  his  standard  of  moral  and  political  virtue 
high,  and  the  fitter  on  that  account  to  be  presented  to  youthful  minds. 

There  are  objectionable  passages  and  even  strange  passages,  more  particu- 
larly in  the  notes;  but  they  are  of  no  consequence  in  a  work  of  so  vast  a 
range,  and  of  so  much  merit ;  and  Mr.  Hallam  may  have  given  offence, 
which  could  never  have  been  his  intention,  to  some  good  men,  to  whom  their 
establishments  are  naturally  so  dear ;  but  I  see  not  how  this  was  to  be 
avoided,  if  he  was  to  render  equal  justice  to  all  persons  and  parties,  all  sects 
and  churches  in  their  turn  ;  and  if  he  was  to  do  his  duty,  as  he  has  nobly 
done,  to  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  his  country. 


III. 

THE  story  of  England  has  of  late  been  illustrated  by  many  intelligent  and 
laborious  inquirers.  We  have  had  the  Roman  Catholic  case  stated  by  Dr. 
Lingard,  an  author  of  original  inquiry  and  vigorous  mind  ;  certainly  a  very 
skilful  controversial  writer.  For  similar  reasons  we  may  now  consider  our- 
selves as  in  possession  of  the  republican  case,  during  the  times  of  Charles 
the  First,  for  Mr.  Godwin  has  dedicated  four  volumes  to  the  subject,  and  for 
this  express  purpose.  A  new  edition  of  Burnet  has  been  given  us.  The  his- 
tory of  Clarendon  has  at  last,  very  creditably  to  our  sister  university,  been 
presented  to  the  public  in  its  original  state.  Miss  Aikin  has  drawn  up  inter- 
esting memoirs  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  the  First,  and  an  important 
work  on  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First :  she  is  a  diligent  and  sagacious  wri- 
ter. There  are  treatises  coming  out,  volume  after  volume,  by  a  most  enter- 
taining and  learned  antiquary,  Mr.  D'Israeli.  And  we  have  fierce  and  elo- 


NOTES.  167 

quent  orations  on  the  merits  and  demerits  of  the  great  personages  of  our  his- 
tory, ecclesiastical  and  civil,  Laud,  Clarendon,  and  others,  in  the  different 
reviews  by  which  our  periodical  literature  is  now  distinguished. 

There  are  several  very  agreeable  and  sensible  publications  by  Lord  John 
Russell.  Recently  has  been  published  a  posthumous  work  of  Mr.  Coxe,  a 
literary  laborer,  to  whom  the  historical  student  is  so  much  indebted,  —  the 
Pelham  Papers,  —  they  supply  the  information  that  has  been  so  long  wanted, 
with  respect  to  the  politics  and  characters  of  the  members  of  the  Pelham  and 
Newcastle  administrations. 

IV. 

Edward  the  Confessor's  Laws. 

THE  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  are  lost.  The  great  Alfred  was  a 
legislator ;  and  Edward  the  Confessor  is  represented  as  having  revised  and 
improved  the  laws  of  his  predecessor  Edgar,  and  therefore  probably  of 
Alfred,  rather  than  as  having  instituted  any  code  of  his  own.  It  might  have 
been  thought,  therefore,  that  some  information  on  this  subject  might  have 
been  obtained  from  any  writings  that  respected  Alfred.  There  is  a  life  of 
him  by  the  monk  Asserius,  and  there  are  laws  of  his  which  are  come 
down  to  us,  and  which  may  be  seen  in  Wilkins ;  but  neither  in  the  work 
of  his  biographer,  nor  in  these  laws  of  Alfred,  can  any  thing  be  found 
which  may  enable  us  to  understand  what  were  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor. 

It  may,  perhaps,  give  the  student  some  insight  into  the  nature  of  an  inquiry 
like  this,  if  he  takes  the  trouble  of  following  the  subject  through  one,  at  least, 
of  the  notes  of  a  learned  antiquary. 

Eadmerius  is  a  monkish  writer,  who  gives  the  history  of  his  own  age,  of 
William  the  First  to  William  Rufus,  and  Henry  the  First ;  his  work  was  ed- 
ited by  the  learned  Selden. 

Now,  it  is  known  that  William  the  First  entered  into  some  agreement  with 
his  subjects  respecting  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor ;  and  it  might  be 
expected  that  Eadmerius,  when  he  gives  the  history  of  the  reign  of  William, 
would  also  have  given  us  some  account  of  this  remarkable  code.  But  in  the 
course  of  the  history,  the  monk  (with  more  than  the  stupidity  of  a  monk), 
instead  of  giving  us  these  laws,  observes,  "  that  he  forbears  to  mention  what 
was  promulgated  by  William  with  respect  to  secular  matters."  So  here  we 
have  a  complete  disappointment.  This  gives  occasion  to  his  editor,  Selden, 
in  a  note,  to  consider  the  subject  more  at  length. 

Selden  produces  a  passage  from  the  Litchfield  Chronicle,  a  very  ancient 
monkish  writing,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  Conqueror,  in  the  fourth 
year  of  his  reign,  granted  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  to  the  interces- 
sion of  his  English  subjects  :  "  Ad  preces  communitatis  Anglorum ;  "  and  that 
twelve  men  were  chosen  from  each  county,  who  were  to  collect  and  state, 
what  these  laws  were ;  and  that  what  they  said  was  to  be  written  down  by 
the  Archbishop  of  York  and  Bishop  of  London.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  fact 
connected  with  the  subject. 

Another  monkish  historian,  Roger  Hoveden,  who  lived  under  Henry  the 


168  NOTES. 

Second  and  John,  gives  the  same  account,  and  he  subjoins  the  laws  them- 
selves at  full  length.  From  him  they  are  published  by  Wilkins  ;  and  here, 
then,  we  might  suppose  that  we  had  reached  the  object  of  our  inquiry.  But 
not  so.  When  we  come  to  peruse  them,  there  is  little  to  be  found  which 
could  make  them  so  dear  to  the  English  commonalty  ;  and  by  looking  at  the 
eleventh  head  on  Dane-gelt,  we  perceive  the  name  of  William  the  younger, 
or  of  William  Rufus,  which  shows,  as  Selden  observes,  that  they  are  of  a 
later  date  than  the  time  of  the  Conqueror,  or  at  least  most  unskilfully  inter- 
polated. This,  therefore,  on  the  whole,  is  also  a  disappointment. 

Selden  has  therefore  recourse,  in  the  next  place,  to  Ingulphus,  who  was  a 
sort  of  secretary  to  the  Conqueror. 

Ingulphus,  at  the  end  of  his  history,  tells  us  that  he  brought  the  code  of 
Edward's  laws,  which  William  had  authorized  and  renewed,  from  London 
to  his  own  abbey  of  Croyland,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  (as  he  says) 
the  society  from  the  penalties  which  were  contained  in  it  "  in  the  follow- 
ing manner."  And  now,  then,  we  might  expect  once  more  to  find  the 
laws  all  subjoined.  But  here  the  history  ends,  and  the  laws  are  wanting  in 
the  MS. 

But  a  new  attempt  is  made  by  the  illustrious  antiquary  (for  these  valuable 
men  are  possessed,  at  least,  of  the  virtue  of  patience),  and  in  a  later  MS., 
written,  he  thinks,  about  the  year  1200,  he  finds  a  code  at  the  end  of  it, 
which  from  the  title  should  be  the  code  required.  This  code  he  gives,  and 
endeavours  to  translate.  It  is  also  given  by  Wilkins,  and  translated  still 
more  completely. 

But  our  disappointments  are  not  here  to  ceaee.  Even  this  copy  of  the  code 
must  surely  be  materially  imperfect.  We  look  in  vain  for  those  general  pro- 
visions of  protection  to  the  subject,  which  must  have  made  these  laws  so  dear 
to  our  ancestors. 

Finally,  it  is  collected  from  the  monkish  historians  that  Henry  the  First,  to 
ingratiate  himself  with  his  subjects,  granted  them  the  laws  of  Edward  the 
Confessor.  A  code  of  Henry's  laws  has  come  down  to  us,  and  may  be  seen 
in  Wilkins.  But  it  is  a  grant  of  Edward's  laws  that  we  find  here  mentioned, 
and  no  detail  of  the  laws  themselves.  Here,  then,  we  have  once  more  a  dis- 
appointment, and  further  research  seems  at  an  end. 

The  code  of  Henry  was,  no  doubt,  to  a  certain  extent  modified  and  melio- 
rated according  to  this  favorite  model ;  but  of  the  model  itself  no  further 
knowledge  can  be  obtained.  Our  lawyers  and  antiquaries  are,  therefore, 
left  to  conclude  that  these  celebrated  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  may  now 
be  imaged  to  us  by  what  is  called  "  the  common  law  of  the  land,"  or  the  un- 
written collection  of  maxims  and  customs  which  are  transmitted  from  lawyer 
to  lawyer,  and  from  age  to  age,  and  have  obtained  reception  and  usage  among 
our  courts  and  judges. 

V. 

CHARTERS. 

THE  9th  of  Henry  the  Third  is  the  final  one  ;  and  that,  therefore,  which  is 
always  commented  upon.  Of  the  whole  thirty-eighth  clauses,  about  one  half 
respect  merely  the  oppressions  of  the  feudal  system. 


NOTES.  169 

But  by  the  words  of  the  thirty-eighth  clause,  the  feudal  tyranny,  wherever 
relaxed  between  the  king  and  his  vassals,  was  to  be  relaxed  between  the  su- 
perior and  inferior,  through  all  the  links  of  the  feudal  subordination.  And  of 
the  thirty-eight  clauses,  some  were  of  a  general  nature.  By  the  ninth  and 
thirtieth,  an  effort  was  made  for  the  benefit  of  commerce  ;  protection  afforded 
to  the  trading  towns,  foreign  merchants,  &c.  &c. 

The  eleventh,  twelfth,  thirteenth,  seventeenth,  twenty -fourth,  twenty- 
eighth,  and  thirty-fourth,  were  intended  for  the  better  administration  of 
justice. 

In  the  twenty-sixth  may  be  seen  the  first  effort  that  was  made  to  procure 
for  an  accused  person  a  trial;  i.  e.  in  other  words,  to  protect  the  subject  from 
arbitrary  imprisonment. 

Yet  so  slow  is  the  progress  of  civil  liberty,  that  the  first  principles  of 
the  most  obvious  justice  could  not  be  secured  till  some  centuries  afterwards, 
by  the  proper  fitting  up  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second. 

The  thirty-seventh  clause  runs  thus: — "  Scutagium  de  csetero  capiatur 
sicut  capi  solebat  tempore  regis  Henrici  avi  nostri."  And  in  the  time  of 
Henry  the  Second  the  scutage  was  moderate. 

The  important  point  of  the  levying  of  money  was  thus  left  in  a  very  im- 
perfect state.  But  in  the  confirmation  of  the  charters  by  Edward  the  First, 
it  was  distinctly  stated  that  no  money  should  be  levied  upon  the  subject,  ex- 
cept by  the  common  consent  of  all  the  realm,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
realm. 

The  celebrated  statute,  "  de  tallagio  non  concedendo,"  is  shown  by  Black- 
stone  to  be  probably  nothing  more  than  a  contemporary  Latin  abstract  of  the 
two  French  charters  themselves,  and  not  a  statute. 

The  most  striking  clause  of  all,  so  well  known,  so  often  quoted,  so  justly 
celebrated,  runs  thus  :  —  "  Nullus  liber  homo  capiatur,"  &c.  &c., "  nisi  per 
legale  judicium  parium  suorum  vel  per  legem  terra?,"  &c.  &c. 

This  twenty-ninth  clause  contains  a  general  description  of  a  free  constitu- 
tion. Dr.  Sullivan,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Laws  of  England,  has  made  it 
the  subject  of  a  comment  through  all  its  words  and  divisions.  That,  in  the 
first  place,  it  secures  the  personal  liberty  of  the  subject;  in  the  next,  the  full 
enjoyment  of  his  property,  &c.  <fcc.;  and  certainly,  while  the  spirit  of  this 
clause  is  preserved,  civil  liberty  must  be  enjoyed  by  Englishmen  :  whether, 
however,  this  spirit  shall  be  preserved,  depends  upon  their  preserving  their 
own  spirit.  The  book  of  Dr.  Sullivan  is  worth  looking  at.  You  may  see 
from  the  contents,  what  parts  are  more  particularly  deserving  of  your  at- 
tention. 

The  Charter  of  the  Forest  speaks  volumes  to  those  who  can  reflect  on 
what  they  read. 

Observe  the  words  of  the  tenth  clause  :  — ««  Nullus  de  caetero,  amittat  vi- 
tam  vel  membra  pro  venatione  nostra."  — "  Sed  si  quis  captus  fuerit,"  &c. 
&c.  "  jaceat  in  prisona  nostra  per  unum  annum,"  &c.  &c. 

Offences  in  the  forest  must  have  been,  before  this  time,  often  punished  by 
the  loss  of  life  or  of  limb,  when  murder  was  not. 

Observe,  too,  the  clauses  which  concede  the  restoration  of  whole  tracts  of 
land  to  their  former  state,  —  tracts  which  had  been  reduced  to  forests. 

VOL.  i.  22 


170  NOTES. 

That  the  kings  of  these  days,  and  no  doubt  their  barons,  should  have  been 
so  interested  in  hunting  as  to  be  guilty,  for  the  sake  of  it,  not  only  of  rob- 
bery and  tyranny,  but  of  maiming  men  and  even  putting  them  to  death,  is  no 
slight  proof  of  the  value  of  those  elegant  arts  and  that  more  extended  system 
of  inquiry  and  knowledge,  in  consequence  of  which  the  manly  exercises  are 
left  to  fill  their  place,  and  not  more  than  their  place,  in  the  circle  of  human 
anxieties  and  amusements. 

Our  game  laws  and  our  country  gentleman  are  the  regular  descendants  of 
the  forest  laws  and  barons  of  ancient  times.  They  are  thought  by  many  to 
bear  some  marks  of  their  iron  original. 

In  the  fourth  clause  of  Magna  Charta  are  these  words  :  —  "  Et  hoc  sine 
destructione  et  vasto  (waste)  hominum  vel  rerum ; "  that  is,  the  laborers  and 
the  stock  are  summed  up  together :  no  distinction  made  between  them. 

The  barons,  the  assertors  of  their  own  independence,  though  they  felt  for 
freemen  and  those  below  them,  were  but  too  insensible  to  the  situation  of 
the  villeins ;  to  the  heavy  system  of  slavery  which  they  saw,  or  rather  did 
not  see,  darkening  with  its  shade  the  fair  fields  of  their  domain. 

In  like  manner  were  the  English  nation,  in  our  own  times,  twenty  years 
in  abolishing  the  slave  trade ;  and  if  the  whole  kingdom  had  been  equally 
accustomed  to  the  trade,  as  were  the  ports  of  Bristol  and  Liverpool,  they 
would  have  been  twenty  centuries. 

The  effect  of  habit  in  banishing  all  the  natural  feelings  of  mercy,  justice, 
benevolence,  as  in  the  instances  of  slave-dealers,  banditti,  supporters  of  harsh 
laws,  penal  statutes  against  dissenters,  &c.  &c.,  is  perfectly  frightful. 


VI. 

THERE  is  a  book  by  Daines  Barrington,  Observations  on  the  Ancient  Stat- 
utes, which  should  be  considered. 

It  is  often  descriptive  of  the  manners  of  the  times,  of  the  views  and  opin- 
ions of  our  ancestors  :  it  is  even  entertaining. 

The  conclusion  which  the  student  should  draw  is,  the  good  that  might  be 
done,  or  might  be  at  least  most  honorably  and  virtuously  attempted,  by  any 
legislator  or  lawyer  who  would  turn  his  attention  to  our  statute  book,  pro- 
cure the  repeal  of  obsolete  statutes,  endeavour  to  make  our  law  proceedings 
less  expensive,  in  short,  not  acquiesce  in  the  general  supposition,  that  no  im- 
provements can  be  introduced  into  our  laws  and  our  administration  of  them. 
Much  good  might  be  done  by  patient,  intelligent  men  ;  but  the  most  sullen, 
and  unenlightened,  and  unfeeling  opposition  must  be  more  or  less  expected 
from  our  courts  of  law,  and  all  who  are  connected  with  them. 

"  Truths  would  you  teach,  or  save  a  sinking  land," 

—  that  is,  would  you  improve  laws,  and  keep  people  from  being  ruined,  — 
"  All  fear,  none  aid  you,  and  few  understand." 

This  note  was  written  in  the  year  1808,  and  the  author  has  since  lived  to 
see  and  admire  the  humane  and  intelligent  efforts  of  Sir  S.  Romilly,  Sir  J. 
Mackintosh,  Mr.  Peel,  and  Mr.  Brougham. 


NOTES.  171 

VII. 

Sir  John  Fortescue,  Chancellor  to  Henry  the  Sixth. 

Two  treatises  of  his  have  come  down  to  us,  that  seem  quite  decisive  of 
the  question  relative  to  our  monarchy,  as  understood  in  early  times,  whether 
arbitrary  or  not.  The  first  is,  —  De  Laudibus  Legum  Anglise. 

The  distinction  that  the  chancellor  everywhere  makes,  is  between 
"  power  royal"  and  "  power  politick,"  that  is,  arbitrary  monarchy  and  lim- 
ited ;  and  he  lays  it  down,  that  the  kings  of  England  are  not  like  other 
kings  and  emperors,  but  are  limited. 

(Translation  quite  close  and  exact.) 

Chap.  9th.  "  For  the  king  of  England  cannot  alter  nor  change  the  laws 
of  his  realme  at  his  pleasure  :  for  why  ?  he  governeth  his  people  by  power, 
not  only  royal,  but  also  politique.  If  his  power  over  them  were  royal  only, 
then  he  might  change  the  laws  of  his  realm,  and  charge  his  subjects  with 
tallage  and  other  burdens  without  their  consent ;  such  is  the  dominion  that 
the  civil  laws  purporte,  when  they  say,  rthe  prince  his  pleasure  hath  the 
force  of  a  law.  But  from  this,  much  differeth  the  power  of  a  king,  whose 
government  over  his  people  is  politique,  for  he  can  neither  change  laws 
without  the  consent  of  his  subjects,  nor  yet  charge  them  with  strange  im- 
positions against  their  wills,"  &c.  &c. 

"  Nam  non  potest  rex  Angliae  ad  libitum  suum,"  &c.  &c. 

In  Chapter  18th,  he  observes  :  — 

"  Sed  non,  sic  Anglise  statuta  oriri  possunt,"  &c. 

"  But  statutes  cannot  thus  passe  in  England,  forsomuch  as  they  are  made, 
not  only  by  the  prince's  pleasure,  but  also  by  the  assent  of  the  whole  realm; 
so  that  of  necessity  they  must  procure  the  wealth  of  the  people,"  &c.  &c. — 
"  seeing  they  are  ordained  not  by  the  device  of  one  man  alone,  or  of  a  hun- 
dred wise  counsellors  only,  but  of  more  than  three  hundred  chosen  men," 
&c.  &c.  —  "  as  they  that  know  the  fashion  of  the  parliament  of  England, 
and  the  order  and  manner  of  calling  them  together,  are  able  more  distinctly 
to  declare,'*  &c.  &c. 

The  young  prince  (Henry's  son,  Prince  Edward),  to  whom  the  discourse 
is  addressed,  asks,  — "  Since  the  laws  of  England  are,  as  he  sees,  so  good, 
why  some  of  his  progenitors  have  gone  about  to  bring  in  the  civil  laws?  " 
&c. 

"  In  those  laws,"  says  the  Chancellor,  "  the  prince's  pleasure  standeth  in 
force  of  a  law  quite  contrary  to  the  decrees  of  the  laws  of  England,"  &c. 
&c. 

But  to  rule  the  people  by  government  politique  is  no  yoke,  but  liberty 
and  great  security,  not  only  to  the  subjects,  but  also  to  the  king  himself. 
And  to  show  this,  the  chancellor  considers  "  the  inconveniences  that  hap- 
pen in  the  realm  of  France,  through  regal  government  alone." 

He  then  treats  of"  the  commodities  that  precede  of  the  joynt  government 
politique  and  regal  in  the  realme  of  England." 

Then,  "  a  comparison  of  the  worthiness  of  both  the  regimets." 

The  whole  work  is  very  concise,  but  full  of  curious  matter. 


172  NOTES. 

VIII. 

Original  Insignificancy  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Richard  the  Second  we  find  the  following 
passage  :  — 

As  to  the  aid  the  king  demanded  of  his  commons  for  the  defence,  &c.  &c. 
the  Commons  said,  "  That  in  the  last  parliament  the  same  things  were 
shown  to  them  in  behalf  of  the  king,"  &c.  &c.  '« That  in  hopes  of  the 
promise  held  out  to  them  to  be  discharged  of  taillage,  they  granted  a  greater 
sum  than  had  been  asked ;  and  after  their  grievous  losses,  and  the  low  value 
of  their  corn  and  chattels,  they  concluded  with  praying  the  king  to  excuse 
them,  not  being  able  to  bear  any  charge  for  pure  poverty,"  (par  pure 
povertie.) 

To  all  which  Monsieur  Richard  le  Scroop  (who  it  seems  was  steward  of 
the  household)  answered,  making  protestation  :  — 

"  That  he  knew  of  no  such  promise  made  in  the  last  parliament,  and, 
saving  the  honor  and  reverence  due  to  the  king  and  lords,  what  the  Com- 
mons said  was  not  true,"  (le  dit  de  la  Commun  en  celle  partie  ne  contient 
ne  verite.)  This,  at  a  time,  when  if  such  language  had  been  used  by  Mon- 
sieur le  Scroop  to  the  lords,  the  floor  of  the  assembly  would  have  been 
instantly  covered  with  gauntlets. 

When  the  feudal  system  declined,  the  power,  which  could  not  then  be 
occupied  by  the  commons  (the  nobility  had  been  swept  away  by  the  civil 
wars,)  fell  into  the  possession  of  the  crown,  a  natural  and  constant  claimant. 

The  liberties  of  England  were  therefore  in  great  danger,  when  princes  so 
able,  as  those  of  the  house  of  Tudor,  were  to  be  followed  by  princes  so 
arbitrary,  as  those  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 

The  two  great  efforts  of  Henry  the  Seventh  were,  first,  to  destroy  the 
power  of  the  aristocracy  ;  secondly,  to  amass  treasures  to  render  the  crown 
independent :  his  ambition  and  avarice  ministered  to  each  other. 

But  the  first  point  he  could  not  attempt  to  carry  without  advancing  the 
power  of  the  commons.  He  could  not,  for  instance,  open  the  way  to  the 
lords,  to  alienate  their  lands,  without  giving  the  commons  an  opportunity 
of  purchasing  them  ;  that  is,  of  turning  their  mercantile  affiuence  into  con- 
stitutional importance. 

The  second  point,  however,  was  of  a  different  nature.  He  could  not  amass 
the  treasures  which  he  wished,  without  encroaching  upon  the  exclusive 
right  of  parliament  to  levy  money ;  and  if  the  practices,  pretences,  and  pre- 
rogatives, which  he  introduced,  advanced,  and  renewed,  had  not  been  re- 
sisted by  our  ancestors  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  First,  the  liberties  of  Eng- 
land must  gradually  have  decayed. 

Sir  Thomas  More,  when  young,  resisted  Henry  the  Seventh's  demand 
from  the  commons  of  about  three-fifteenths  for  the  marriage  of  his  daughter : 
the  king  actually  threw  More's  father,  then  a  judge,  into  the  Tower,  and 
fined  him  one  hundred  pounds.  Had  not  the  king  died,  Sir  Thomas  was 
determined  to  have  gone  over  sea,  thinking,  "  that,  being  in  the  king's 
indignation,  he  could  not  live  in  England  without  great  danger."  —  See 
Roper's  Life. 

The  Life  of  Henry  the  Seventh  has  been  written  by  Lord  Bacon  :  such  a 


NOTES.  173 

man  as  Bacon  can  never  write  without  profitably  exercising,  sometimes  the 
understanding,  sometimes  the  imagination  of  his  reader  ;  yet,  on  the  whole, 
the  work  will  disappoint  him. 

The  circumstances,  indeed,  in  which  Lord  Bacon  was  placed,  rendered  it 
impossible,  for  him  to  exercise  the  superior  powers  of  his  mind  with  any  tol- 
erable freedom.  He  wrote  his  History  of  Henry  the  Seventh  during  the  pe- 
riod of  his  disgrace  under  the  reign  of  James  the  First. 

It  was  not  for  Lord  Bacon  to  reprobate  the  robberies  of  Henry  the  Seventh, 
when  he  had  himself  received  money  for  the  perversion  of  justice  ;  or  at  least 
had  been  accused  and  disgraced  for  corrupt  practices  and  connivances.  It 
was  not  for  Lord  Bacon  to  assert,  as  he  had  once  done,  the  popular  principles 
of  the  English  constitution,  while  writing  under  the  eye  of  a  monarch  like 
James  the  First,  one  not  only  impressed  with  the  divine  nature  of  his  pre- 
rogative, but  one,  to  whose  humanity  he  owed  his  liberty  at  the  time,  and 
the  very  means  of  his  subsistence. 

The  faults  of  ordinary  men  may  be  buried  in  their  tombs ;  but  the  very 
frailties  of  men  of  genius  may  be  the  lamentation  of  ages. 

The  laws  of  Henry  the  Seventh  merit  the  consideration  of  the  student. 

It  was  the  intention  of  these  laws  to  advance  the  husbandry,  manufactures, 
and  general  commerce  of  the  country. 

The  observations  of  Lord  Bacon,  and  the  subsequent  criticisms  of  Hume, 
will  afford  the  student  a  lesson  in  that  most  difficult  and  important  of  all 
practical  sciences,  the  science  of  political  economy. 

On  the  subjects  that  belong  to  this  science,  it  may,  I  think,  be  observed, 
that  from  the  extent  and  variety  of  the  points  to  be  considered,  the  first  im- 
pressions are  almost  always  wrong. 

Practical  men,  as  they  are  called,  are  therefore  pretty  generally  mistaken 
on  all  such  subjects ;  particularly  where  they  think  themselves  exclusively 
entitled  to  decide. 

Practical  men  are  fitted,  and  jilted  ordy,  to  furnish  facts  and  details,  which 
it  is  afterwards  the  business,  and  the  proper  business,  of  the  philosopher  or 
statesman  to  make  the  foundation  of  his  general  reasonings  and  permanent 
laws. 

So  fallacious  are  first  impressions,  so  remote  and  invisible  is  often  the  gen- 
eral principle  that  ought  ultimately  to  decide  us,  that  even  the  philosopher 
himself  must,  on  such  subjects,  be  much  indebted  to  experience. 

Our  ancestors  could  not  be  inferior  in  understanding  to  ourselves  :  who 
could  be  superior  to  Lord  Bacon  ?  Yet  the  laws  of  Henry  the  Seventh, 
which  Lord  Bacon  extols,  and  which  would  appear  wise,  perhaps,  to  the 
generality  of  men  at  this  day  (1808),  are  shown  by  Mr.  Hume  to  be  founded 
on  narrow  views,  and  to  be  the  very  reverse  of  what  Lord  Bacon  supposed 
them  to  be. 

It  is  on  account  of  Mr.  Hume's  observations  on  the  subjects  of  political 
economy,  that  the  appendices  of  his  History  are  so  valuable.  Different  por- 
tions in  his  work  are  likewise  in  this  manner  rendered  valuable,  more  par- 
ticularly the  estimates  which  he  gives  of  a  reign  when  he  comes  to  the  close 
of  it. 

Look  at  his  account  of  the  miscellaneous  transactions,  for  instance,  of  Ed- 
ward the  Second.  "  The  kingdom  of  England,"  says  he,  "  was  affected  with 


174  NOTES. 

a  grievous  famine,"  &c.  &c.  And  then  he  goes  on,  in  a  few  words,  to  lay 
downfall  the  proper  principles,  which  were  afterwards  so  beautifully  drawn 
out  and  explained  by  Adam  Smith  in  his  Dissertation  on  the  Corn  Laws ; 
and  which  required  all  the  authority  of  the  minister,  the  late  Mr.  Pitt,  to 
enforce  upon  the  community,  and  even  upon  the  houses  of  parliament  them- 
selves, while  men  were  everywhere  raving  about  "  monopolizers  of  corn," 
"  the  necessity  of  fixing  proper  rates  to  the  price,"  &c.  &c.  This  was  the 
expedient  of  the  parliament  of  Edward  the  Second. 

The  necessities  of  the  state  during  the  wars  that  began  in  the  year  1793, 
have  brought  the  science  of  political  economy  into  more  general  attention ; 
and  have  served,  very  forcibly,  to  display  the  merits  of  the  two  great  in- 
structors of  our  English  ministers  and  reasoners,  Hume  and  Smith. 

The  public,  however,  have  still  much  to  learn ;  and  when  our  young  men 
of  rank  and  property  have  dismissed  their  academical  pursuits,  or  rather 
whenever  they  have  an  opportunity,  they  should  apply  themselves  to  the 
study  of  political  economy,  the  science  of  the  prosperity  of  mankind,  a  study 
of  all  others  the  most  interesting  and  important. 

A  young  man  of  reflection  may  find  that  the  principles  of  political  econo- 
my partake  of  the  nature  of  literature,  as  described  by  Cicero,  "  moving 
along  with  him,  let  him  go  and  do  what  he  will,  by  night,  by  day,  in  the 
town,  in  the  country,"  &c.  &c. 


LECTURE  VII. 

FRANCE. 

WE  must  now  turn  to  the  French  history.  The  period 
which  we  may  consider  is  that  which  intervened  between  the 
accession  of  Philip  of  Valois,  and  the  death  of  Louis  the  Elev- 
enth. 

This  period  I  would  wish  particularly  to  recommend  to  your 
examination,  for  it  is  the  most  important  in  the  constitutional 
history  of  France. 

I  have  already  endeavoured  to  draw  your  attention  to  this 
great  subject,  —  the  constitutional  history  of  France.  There 
are  few  that  can  be  thought  of  more  consequence  in  the  annals 
of  modern  Europe.  Had  France  acquired  a  good  form  of 
government  while  the  feudal  system  was  falling  into  decay, 
the  character  of  the  French  nation  would  have  been  very 
different  from  what,  in  the  result,  it  afterwards  became.  All 
the  nations  on  the  continent  would  have  been  materially  influ- 
enced in  their  views  and  opinions  by  such  an  example.  The 
whole  history  of  France  and  of  those  countries  would  have 
been  changed,  and  the  private  and  public  happiness  of  the  world 
would  have  been  essentially  improved. 

The  first  and  great  subject  of  inquiry,  therefore,  in  the 
French  history,  is  this,  —  What  were  the  circumstances  that 
more  particularly  affected  the  civil  liberties  of  France  ? 

It  is  quite  necessary  to  remark,  that  this  subject  is  never 
properly  treated  by  the  French  historians.  They  never  seem 
to  feel  its  importance ;  to  understand  its  nature.  When  they 
advert  to  the  state  of  France  ;  when  they  endeavour  to  consider 
how  the  country  is  to  be  improved,  how  advanced  to  perfec- 
tion, they  content  themselves,  as  their  orators  seem  to  have 


176  LECTURE  VII. 

done  in  the  States-General,  with  vague  declamations  about 
order  and  virtue,  and  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  life  ;  a  love 
of  his  people  must,  they  think,  be  found  in  the  sovereign, 
purity  of  morals  in  his  subjects.  These  are  the  topics  on  which 
they  harangue.  Every  political  good,  they  suppose,  is  to  result 
from  the  private  and  individual  merits  of  the  monarch  and  those 
whom  he  is  to  govern.  They  look  no  further.  It  seems  never 
to  have  occurred  to  them,  that  the  virtues  which  they  wish  for, 
both  in  the  prince  and  the  subject,  are  generated  by  a  free 
government,  and  that  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  them  under  any 
other. 

From  this  general  observation  on  the  French  writers,  one 
illustrious  exception  must  be  made,  —  the  Abbe  de  Mably. 
His  work  must,  therefore,  be  continually  compared  with  the 
representations  of  the  historians  Velly,  Mezeray,  and  Le  Pere 
Daniel.  It  is  in  his  work,  and  in  his  alone,  that  the  philosophy 
of  the  French  history  can  be  found.  Without  it  an  English 
student  would  pass  through  the  whole  detail,  continually  misled 
by  his  guides,  or  suffered  to  move  on,  without  once  finding  his 
attention  properly  directed  to  the  great  misfortune  of  France  ; 
the  misfortune  of  her  political  system  ;  the  decline  and  the  de- 
struction of  her  constitutional  liberties. 

This  subject  has  not  been  overlooked  by  our  own  great 
historian,  Robertson.  In  his  Introduction  to  his  History  of 
Charles  the  Fifth,  he  describes,  in  a  concise  and  unaffected 
manner,  the  means  by  which  the  prerogative  and  the  power  of 
the  crown  were  extended,  and  the  alteration  that  took  place  in 
the  constitution  and  government  so  unfavorable  to  the  general 
liberty  of  the  subject ;  the  fatal  manner  in  which  the  ancient 
national  assemblies  lost  their  legislative  power,  and  in  which 
the  monarch  gradually  assumed  it,  and  still  more  fatally  assumed 
the  power  of  levying  taxes.  There  are  three  notes  (38,  39, 
40,)  particularly  worth  reading,  in  his  preface  to  Charles  the 
Fifth. 

With  respect  to  the  constitution  of  France,  the  great  point 
in  that  constitution  was,  as  it  has  been  in  all  the  European 
constitutions,  simply  this, — whether  the  national  assemblies 
could  maintain  their  importance,  and  above  all,  preserve  their 
right  of  taxation.  On  this  right  of  taxation  every  thing  de- 
pended. 


FRANCE.  177 

To  the  general  principles  of  liberty  a  nation  is  easily  made 
blind,  or  can  even  become  indifferent.  Such  principles  are 
never  understood  by  the  multitude  ;  and  the  interest  they 
excite  is  of  a  nature  too  refined  and  generous  to  animate  the 
mass  of  mankind  either  long  or  deeply.  But  fortunately  for 
them,  they  who  trample  upon  their  rights,  generally  (as  it  would 
be  expressed  by  the  people  themselves,)  want  their  money  ; 
and  here,  at  least,  is  found  a  coarser  string,  which  can  always 
vibrate  strongly  and  steadily.  The  tax-gatherer  can  at  all 
events  be  discovered  by  the  people  to  be  an  enemy,  as  they 
suppose,  to  their  happiness.  Popular  insurrections  have  seldom 
had  any  other  origin  ;  and  the  unfeeling  luxury  of  the  great  is 
thus  sometimes  most  severely  punished  by  the  headlong  and 
brutal  fury  of  the  multitude.  Patriots  and  legislators  are,  there- 
fore, the  most  successfully  employed  when  they  are  fighting  the 
ignorant  selfishness  of  the  low  against  the  vicious  selfishness  of 
the  high  ;  when  they  are  exchanging  tax  for  privilege,  and  pur- 
chasing what  is,  in  fact,  the  happiness  of  both,  by  converting 
the  mean  passions  of  each  to  the  purposes  of  a  generous  and 
enlightened  prudence.  But  to  do  this,  it  is  necessary  that 
some  body  of  men,  who  can  sympathize  with  the  people,  should 
have  a  political  existence,  and  that  their  assent  should  be  neces- 
sary to  make  taxation  legal.  Of  peaceful,  regular,  constitutional 
freedom,  which  is  the  only  freedom,  this  is  the  best  and  the 
only  practical  safeguard. 

You  must  now  recall  to  your  minds  what  I  have  already  said 
of  the  French  history. 

That  the  great  writers  are  too  voluminous,  and  that  you 
must,  therefore,  meditate  the  incidents  that  appear  in  the 
abridgments  of  Henault  and  Millot,  or  the  concise  history  of 
D'Antequil ;  and,  when  they  seem  likely  to  be  of  importance, 
consult,  if  you  please,  the  great  historians. 

An  instance  of  this  kind  occurs  early  in  the  period  we  are 
now  considering.  You  will  see  in  the  abridgments  that  the 
states-general  assemble  ;  an  important  circumstance  always. 
You  will  turn  to  Mably,  and  you  will  find  that  a  very  remark- 
able struggle,  as  he  conceives,  took  place  between  the  crown 
and  the  people  ;  and  you  might  here,  therefore,  turn  to  Velly 
and  the  regular  historians.  The  fact  seems  to  be,  that  a 

VOL.  i.  23 


178  LECTURE  VII. 

great  crisis  in  the  French  constitution  did  really  take  place 
during  the  reigns  of  the  earlier  princes  of  the  house  of  Valois, 
particularly  of  John,  when  the  country  was  oppressed  by  the 
successful  and  unjust  inroads  of  our  Edward  the  Third.  The 
states-general  were  called  ;  and  the  opportunity  was  taken  by 
the  third  estate,  and  more  particularly  by  Marcel,  the  Parisian, 
and  his  associates,  to  raise  the  public  into  importance,  and  to 
balance,  or,  as  the  French  historians  represent  it,  to  overpower, 
the  authority  of  the  prince. 

Here,  then,  is  evidently  a  period  that  cannot  be  too  deeply 
meditated.  The  historian  Villaret,  the  successor  of  Velly, 
seems  to  have  taken  due  pains  with  this  part  of  his  under- 
taking. Le  Pere  Daniel  appears  unfortunately  to  have  no  just 
apprehension  of  its  importance,  and,  indeed,  not  to  be  animated 
by  any  principles  of  legislation  and  government,  sufficiently  fa- 
vorable to  the  rights  of  the  people.  The  political  sentiments 
of  Mezeray  are  more  accurate  ;  but  he  is  too  concise  in  his 
narrative,  and  too  sparing  of  his  observations.  These  are  the 
great  historians.  But  the  Abbe  de  Mably  is  well  aware  how 
important  to  the  liberties  of  France  was  the  conduct  of  the 
states-general  on  this  occasion  ;  and  he  states,  explains,  and 
criticizes  their  views  and  their  feelings  apparently  with  great 
penetration  and  propriety. 

The  student  will  contrast  these  writers  with  each  other,  and 
form  his  own  estimate  of  these  memorable  transactions. 

The  narrative  in  Velly  or  Villaret,  opens  with  a  history  of 
the  states-general,  to  which  there  seems  nothing  to  object. 
But  the  moment  the  historian  arrives  at  the  particular  point 
we  are  considering,  his  inadequacy  to  the  subject  appears.  He 
speaks  of  the  third  estate  as  having  gradually  learned  to  discuss 
the  rights  and  encroach  on  the  limits  of  the  royal  authority  ; 
and  their  efforts  to  improve  the  constitution  by  managing  the 
taxation,  and  by  bargaining  for  the  reformation  of  various 
abuses,  he  calls  the  first  essay  of  a  power  usurped.  He  observes 
that  many  writers  have  seen  a  parallel  between  these  transac- 
tions and  those  of  the  English  at  Runnymede  ;  and  he  therefore 
very  properly  gives  an  estimate  of  all  those  proceedings  in  our 
own  country. 

When  this  estimate  is  considered,  the  parallel  is,  no  doubt, 
most  striking  and  complete  ;  the  requisitions  of  the  states 


FRANCE.  179 

and  the  concessions  of  each  party  seem  all  of  the  same  nature 
as  those  between  our  own  King  John  and  his  barons. 

I  must  now  mention,  that,  in  the  first  course  of  lectures 
which  I  delivered,  I  went  through  many  particulars  of  this  re- 
markable struggle,  drawing  my  narrative  from  Velly  and  the 
Abbe  de  Mably,  but  I  begin  to  doubt  whether  I  may  not  hope 
to  employ  your  time  better.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  then  made, 
or  that  any  effort  of  mine  could  possibly  make,  a  detail  of  this 
kind  sufficiently  intelligible  ;  all  that  I  believe  you  would  carry 
away  from  the  lecture,  if  I  were  to  repeat  it,  would  be  a  gener- 
al impression,  that  there  was  in  this  part  of  the  French  history 
a  constitutional  struggle,  worth  your  attention,  and  that  you 
must  consider  it  for  yourselves,  in  the  Abbe  de  Mably.  This 
would  be  the  right  impression,  no  doubt ;  but  I  may  perhaps 
produce  this  impression  sufficiently  by  simply  assuring  you, 
without  any  further  occupation  of  your  time,  that  this  is  the 
case,  and  that  you  must  meditate  this  period  well.  Do  not 
regard  the  slight  manner  in  which  you  may  see  it  mentioned  in 
French  authors.  You  can  easily  conceive  what  an  event  it 
would  have  been  to  Europe  and  mankind,  if  the  French  nation 
had,  like  our  own,  obtained  a  free  government,  and  from  what 
you  have  yourselves  heard  and  remember  of  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  for  the  last  five  and  twenty  years,  this  subject  of  the 
free  constitution  of  France  will  only  derive  a  new  and  more 
effective  interest. 

The  contest  in  the  reign  of  King  John  of  France  has  distinct 
stages,  in  some  of  which  it  resembles  the  struggle  between 
our  own  King  John  and  the  barons  ;  in  others,  the  struggle 
between  Charles  the  First  and  his  parliament ;  and,  at  length, 
it  assumes  an  appearance  precisely  the  same,  which  it  did  in 
the  frightful  and  disgraceful  periods  of  the  late  French  revolu- 
tion ;  every  thing  at  the  disposal  of  the  multitude  ;  and  even 
the  outrages  carried  on  in  a  manner  very  similar.  The  dau- 
phin's officers  murdered  in  his  presence,  and  the  party-colored 
cap  placed  upon  his  head,  as  was,  in  a  similar  irruption  into 
the  palace,  the  bonnet  rouge  on  the  head  of  the  late  most  ami- 
able and  most  unfortunate  monarch,  Louis  the  Sixteenth. 
The  result  was  but  too  certain  ;  either  the  erection  of  some 
military  despotism,  or  the  restoration  of  their  ancient  govern- 


180  LECTURE  VII. 

ment,  returning  with  all  its  abuses,  and  more  than  ever  con- 
firmed in  its  faults  and  errors. 

Either  event  would  necessarily  have  been  destructive  of  all 
rational  liberty  ;  the  latter  took  place.  And  here  may  be  said 
to  have  ended  all  the  more  regular,  and  therefore  more  hopeful 
efforts  for  the  constitution  of  France. 

The  great  mistake  seems  to  me  to  have  been,  that  charters 
were  not  continually  obtained,  (one  was  obtained,)  but  I  mean 
continually  obtained  or  renewed,  from  time  to  time,  as  was 
done  in  England.  It  is  impossible  that  a  constitution  should 
be  established,  or  even  very  thoroughly  improved  at  once,  by 
the  laws  or  provisions  of  any  one  body  of  men  ;  and  the  provis- 
ions that  were  made  for  this  purpose  by  our  own  ancestors  at 
Runnymede,  seem  to  have  been  for  a  long  time  but  too  inef- 
fectual. But  a  charter,  often  renewed  or  improved,  may  long 
remain  and  always  be  remembered,  and  in  this  manner  teach 
those  who  succeed,  the  duties  that  have  been  performed  by 
those  who  went  before  them,  till  freedom  becomes  at  last  inter- 
woven with  the  general  habits  of  thinking  in  a  community,  and 
may  then  be  converted  into  the  effective  law  of  the  land. 

We  cannot  now,  as  I  have  just  observed,  trace  all  the 
causes  of  this  calamitous  alteration  in  the  prospects  of  France. 
The  kingdom  was  most  dreadfully  situated ;  in  a  state  of 
hostility  with  a  victorious  enemy ;  troops  of  soldiers,  who 
acknowledged  no  law  and  no  country,  pillaging  what  the  rav- 
ages of  war  had  not  entirely  swept  away  ;  and,  soon  after,  the 
horrible  insurrection  of  the  Jacquerie,  described  by  Froissart, 
the  peasants  against  the  nobles  ;  all  uniting  to  complete  a  com- 
bination of  horrors  which  no  civilized  country  ever  before  or 
since  exhibited. 

That  the  deputies  from  distant  parts  should,  in  circum- 
stances like  these,  be  unwilling  or  unable  to  meet  in  the 
capital ;  that  the  moderate  and  the  good  should  no  longer  be 
disposed  to  projects  of  reform,  should  easily  fall  away  from 
their  more  ardent  associates,  should  be  even  wanting  in  their 
duties  as  patriots  and  as  men,  should  no  longer  prosecute 
the  tasks  of  hope  amid  these  scenes  of  despair ;  all  this  can 
surely  be  surprising  to  no  one.  Nor  can  we  wonder,  in  a 
country  thus  situated,  at  the  failure  of  any  generous  experi- 


FRANCE.  181 

ment  for  its  liberties,  when  such  experiments,  it  is  but  too 
evident,  must  always  depend  for  their  success,  not  only  on 
the  merit  of  those  who  engage  in  them,  but  on  something  of 
good  fortune  in  the  conjuncture  of  circumstances  in  which  they 
are  attempted. 

It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  read  this  particular  portion  of 
the  French  history  without  sensations  of  the  most  painful 
kind.  However  imperfect  might  be  the  character  of  Marcel 
and  his  associates,  some  great  effort  was  on  this  occasion 
evidently  made  for  the  democratic  part  of  the  constitution  of 
France  ;  —  it  failed  ;  and  as  we  read  the  history,  we  are  left 
with  an  impression  on  our  minds,  that  the  French  sovereigns 
will,  from  this  time,  endeavour  to  carry  on  the  administration 
of  the  government  without  the  assistance  of  any  representative 
assemblies,  i.  e.  without  any  control  or  check  on  their  own 
power  :  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  people  are  henceforward 
to  be  oppressed,  and  the  sovereign  to  be,  by  his  very  situation, 
corrupted  :  a  state  of  things  disgraceful  to  both,  and  even 
dangerous  ;  dangerous,  because  whenever  any  system  of  policy 
is  arranged  in  any  manner  directly  opposed  to  the  reason  and 
feelings  of  mankind,  it  can  never  be  in  a  state  of  safety. 
Nothing  is  really  secure,  that  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  great 
and  established  moral  feelings  of  the  human  heart.  The  slight- 
est accident  may  give  occasion  to  the  most  violent  efforts 
for  its  overthrow  ;  and  such  efforts  are  likely  to  be  attended 
with  the  destruction  of,  at  least,  all  those  who  were  too  ex- 
clusively benefited  by  a  disposition  of  things,  in  itself  unnatu- 
ral and  unjust. 

Considerations,  indeed,  of  this  remote  and  contingent  na- 
ture, I  grieve  to  say,  are  little  likely  to  influence  the  rulers 
of  mankind,  or  the  higher  orders.  General  principles  like 
these  may  slumber  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression)  for 
centuries,  and  then  be  roused  into  action  in  an  instant. 

Mankind,  on  these  occasions,  stand  astonished  at  what  has 
been  long  foreseen  to  be  very  possible,  by  every  intelligent 
reasoner  :  just  as  they  stand  amazed  at  the  first  eruption  of  a 
volcano,  which  the  philosopher  has,  from  physical  appearances, 
always  predicted,  in  vain  protesting  against  the  erection  of 
palaces  and  villas  in  situations  where  they  are  every  moment 
exposed  to  be  buried  in  ashes,  or  annihilated  by  lava. 


182  LECTURE  VII. 

In  this  manner,  in  France,  the  great  national  bodies  which 
had  existed  under  Charlemagne,  the  assemblies  of  the  fields 
of  March  and  May,  were  succeeded  by  no  adequate  represen- 
tation of  the  force  of  the  community  ;  and  the  states-general, 
that  were  convened  by  Philip  le  Bel  and  the  house  of  Valois, 
were  but  imperfect  and  fading  images  of  their  greatness. 

In  England,  on  the  contrary,  the  national  assemblies  never 
lost  their  importance  ;  the  wittenagemotes  were  succeeded  by 
parliaments,  these  by  assemblies  of  the  lords  and  commons  in 
two  distinct  houses,  and  the  civil  liberties  of  the  community 
were  thus,  and  thus  only,  saved  from  destruction. 

The  states-general  of  France  had  been,  as  we  have  already 
intimated,  resisted,  overcome,  and,  in  fact,  disposed  of  by 
John  and  the  Dauphin.  The  latter  mounted  the  throne  with 
the  title  of  Charles  the  Fifth. 

In  consequence  of  the  late  contest,  every  thing  was  sub- 
mitted to  his  will.  But  what  was  the  result  ?  What  use  did 
he  make  of  his  power  ?  Did  it  occur  to  him,  that  he  ought 
to  be  a  patriot  as  well  as  a  king  ;  that  he  should  endeavour  not 
to  extinguish,  but  rather  to  modify,  the  power  of  the  states- 
general  ;  that  he  should  endeavour  to  establish,  by  a  proper 
mixture  of  royal  and  popular  authority,  the  glory  of  his  own 
name  and  the  happiness  of  his  subjects  ;  that  he  should  labor 
to  elevate  them  from  the  state  of  ignorance  and  ferocity  in 
which  they  were  evidently  sunk  ;  that  he  should  allow  them, 
if  not  to  exercise  power  themselves,  to  delegate  their  power 
to  others  ;  that  he  should  teach  them  the  feelings  of  humanity, 
by  admitting  them  to  the  exercise  of  the  rights  of  it ;  did  con- 
siderations of  this  reasonable  nature  occur  to  him  ?  Was  it  in 
this  manner  that  this  renowned  politician  was  employed  from 
his  first  accession  to  power  ?  Far  otherwise.  His  wisdom  was 
exclusively  exerted  in  confirming  and  extending  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  crown,  in  laboring  to  destroy  the  authority  of  the 
states,  and  in  deceiving  his  subjects  into  that  most  fatal  of  all 
political  delusions,  that  "  whatever  is  best  administered  is 
best  ; "  in  persuading  them,  in  contriving  that  they  should 
persuade  themselves,  that  as  he  had  foiled  and  overpowered 
the  English  by  the  prudence  of  his  military  operations,  as  he 
had  swept  away  from  the  country  the  banditti  by  which  it 
was  pillaged,  as  there  was  no  point  which  he  seemed  to 


FRANCE.  183 

carry  by  cruelty  or  by  force,  that  therefore,  in  this  happier 
state  of  things,  it  was  he,  the  king,  who  was  assuredly  the 
father  of  his  country  ;  and  that  it  was  of  no  consequence  what 
became  of  the  states-general,  the  right  of  taxation,  the  princi- 
ples of  the  constitution,  or  any  other  right  or  principle  what- 
ever, while  Marcel  and  his  Parisian  mob  were  not  destroying 
the  public  peace,  nor  the  English,  the  peasants,  nor  the  banditti, 
the  public  prosperity  ;  while,  in  short,  all  the  effects  of  the  hap* 
piest  form  of  government  and  the  most  legitimate  authority 
were  produced  by  the  easier  exercise  of  his  individual  wisdom 
and  experience,  benevolence  and  justice. 

Let  no  nation  presume  to  blame  the  French  for  submitting 
to  considerations  or  acquiescing  in  reasonings  like  these.  No 
nation  has  ever  risen  superior  to  delusions  so  natural  and 
soothing.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say,  that  Charles  suc- 
ceeded in  all  the  objects  of  his  administration  ;  and  he  and  his 
courtiers  contemplated,  no  doubt,  with  the  most  sincere  com- 
placency and  applause,  the  dexterity  with  which  he  wielded 
the  minds  of  men  to  his  purposes,  and  the  gradual  decay  of 
all  those  forms  and  principles  in  their  government  which  were 
likely  to  be  offensive  or  troublesome  (as  they  would  have 
called  it)  to  the  influence  and  authority  of  the  wearer  of  the 
crown.  Was  it,  however,  virtuous,  was  it,  after  all,  wise  in 
the  king  and  his  courtiers,  thus  to  deceive  their  country  and 
destroy  its  constitution  ?  The  history  of  the  succeeding 
reign  is  no  testimony  in  their  favor.  And  as  Charles  the 
Wise  (for  such  he  was  denominated),  —  as  Charles  the  Wise 
approached  that  melancholy  period  of  decay  and  death,  when 
worldly  wisdom  is  but  too  apt  to  appear  mistaken  folly,  the 
politician  discovered  that  his  son  was  a  minor,  that  the  princes 
of  the  blood  were  disunited  and  ambitious,  that  the  general 
prosperity  of  the  nation  and  of  his  royal  house  had  been  left 
totally  to  depend  on  his  own  personal  management  and  pru- 
dence, and  that,  therefore,  every  interest  that  was  dear  to 
him,  as  a  father  or  a  king,  would  in  the  event  be  thrown  into  a 
situation  of  perplexity  and  danger,  from  the  moment  that  he 
himself  expired. 

With  what  sentiments  are  we  to  see  him  summoning  his 
brothers  around  him,  portioning  out  his  authority  among  them, 
laboring  to  provide  for  the  welfare  of  his  child  and  his  king- 
dom, by  the  vain  expedient  of  promises  and  oaths  ? 


184  LECTURE  VII. 

He  had  no  states-general,  no  legislative  assemblies,  whom  he 
had  familiarized  to  their  own  particular  duties,  whom  he  had  al- 
lowed to  exercise  along  with  himself  the  administration  of  the 
public  happiness,  whom  he  had  taught  to  see  in  the  royal  au- 
thority the  best  security  and  protection  of  their  own  ;  he  had 
no  guardians  like  these  to  whom  he  could  intrust  his  son  ;  or 
the  helpless,  hopeless  expedients  of  oaths  and  promises  had 
been  unnecessary. 

"  Charles,"  says  the  historian  Villaret,  " charged  his  broth- 
ers to  abolish  the  impositions  he  had  laid  on  his  subjects,  and 
signed  an  order  for  the  purpose  the  very  day  that  he  died  : 
occupied,"  continues  this  writer,  u  with  the  happiness  of  the 
state  and  the  relief  of  his  people  even  when  he  was  himself 
on  the  confines  of  the  tomb  !  "  a  base  or  shallow  panegyric 
this  in  the  historian,  which  would  have  been  better  deserved, 
if  the  monarch  had  not  robbed  that  people  of  their  right  to  tax 
themselves  by  discontinuing  and  destroying  their  national  as- 
semblies. 

But  on  what  principle  was  it  that  Charles  thus  remitted  his 
taxes  when  sinking  into  the  grave  ?  Was  he  conscious, 
when  too  late,  of  the  injury  he  had  done  his  country  by  im- 
posing them  on  his  own  authority  ?  Did  he  wish  in  this  man- 
ner to  attach  the  people  to  his  child  ?  On  either  supposition, 
what  a  lesson  to  those  who  favor  the  maxims  of  arbitrary 
power  ! 

The  genius  of  Charles  had  been  devoted  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  power  of  the  crown  ;  and  the  nation  who  called 
him  wise,  and  the  prince  to  whom  he  was  a  father,  were  soon 
to  reap  the  effects  of  what  was  esteemed  his  policy,  in  seeing 
their  country  without  order  and  without  law,  destroyed  by 
the  factions  of  the  royal  family,  and  subdued  by  a  foreign 
invader. 

The  next  reign  in  the  history,  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sixth, 
is  ushered  in  by  Villaret  with  the  deepest  lamentations  over  the 
miseries  he  is  going  to  relate.  The  king,  yet  a  minor,  aban- 
doned, he  says,  the  reigns  of  government  to  the  princes  of  the 
blood  by  turns  ;  princes  whom  ambition,  he  says,  and  no  love 
to  their  country,  impelled  to  undertake  the  administration  of 
government. 

From  whom,  it  may  be  asked,  were   they  to  have  learned 


FRANCE.  185 

this  love  of  their  country  ?  From  the  deceased  monarch  ?  — 
He  had  taught  no  lessons  but  those  of  arbitrary  power.  From 
the  free  constitution  of  their  country  ?  —  It  had  been  corrupted 
till  it  was  unfit  for  the  production  of  patriots.  u  The  furious 
people,"  says  the  historian,  u  were  eager  for  their  own  destruc- 
tion, and  as  little  under  the  control  of  reason  as  their  unhappy 
monarch."  What  efforts,  it  may  be  observed,  had  ever  been 
made  to  render  them  otherwise  ?  u  The  corruption,"  says  the 
historian,  u  was  deep  and  general."  It  is  ever  thus,  it  may  be 
answered,  in  an  arbitrary  government ;  and  a  frightful  spectacle 
is  always  presented  whenever,  by  any  accident  or  calamity,  the 
veil  is  withdrawn.  "  One  step  more,"  he  adds,  u  and  France 
had  been  lost,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  had  become  the  pro- 
vince of  our  eternal  rivals  ;  "  and  so  might  every  kingdom, 
constituted  as  France  then  was.  There  is  no  real  security 
against  an  invading  enemy  but  a  government  which,  by  its  equi- 
table laws  and  popular  forms,  has  been  incorporated  with  the 
habits,  and  opinions,  and  affections  of  the  people. 

The  earlier  parts  of  this  reign,  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sixth, 
the  king  who  was  afflicted  with  temporary  fits  of  insanity,  is 
interesting,  like  that  of  his  renowned  father,  and  for  a  similar 
reason,  a  renewal  of  the  contest  between  the  crown  and  the 
people. 

The  student  should  again  compare  the  narrative  of  Villaret 
with  the  philosophic  estimate  of  Mably.  The  facts  are  in  both 
the  same,  yet  it  is  curious  to  observe,  how  different  are  the 
conclusions  which  we  are  taught  to  draw  from  them  by  these 
two  different  writers.  The  one  conceives,  and  justly  con- 
ceives, that  the  constitution  of  a  great  kingdom  is  seen  in  these 
transactions  to  pass  through  its  changes  of  trial  and  settlement ; 
the  other  finds  in  them  little  but  the  insurrections  of  a  licentious 
metropolis,  encountered  and  subdued  by  its  lawful  though  rapa- 
cious rulers. 

I  have  already  intimated  to  you  the  inference  that  is  to  be 
drawn  from  all  the  past  transactions  between  the  crown  and 
the  people  of  France.  The  same  is  the  inference  from  all  that 
you  are  to  approach.  The  difference  between  cunning  and 
wisdom ;  between  paltry  policy  and  liberal  prudence  ;  between 
mean,  jealous,  contracted,  tricking  sagacity,  and  a  pure, 

VOL.   i.  24 


186  LECTURE  VII. 

enlarged,  enlightened  benevolence  ;  the  difference  between 
these,  and  the  superiority  of  the  latter  to  the  former,  even  upon 
the  principles  of  mere  selfish  policy,  and  though  the  calls  of 
humanity  and  duty  had  no  claim  to  be  heard. 

Observe  the  conduct  and  views  of  all  the  different  actors  in 
the  scene  at  the  period  that  is  now  coming  before  us. 

The  royal  counsellors,  the  princes  of  the  blood,  instead  of 
conforming  to  the  will  of  the  late  monarch,  and  abolishing 
the  impositions,  and  then  summoning  the  slates-general,  in 
order  to  obtain  a  constitutional  supply,  omitted  every  meas- 
ure of  this  salutary  nature,  and  then  found  themselves  reminded 
of  their  duty,  and  compelled  to  the  performance  of  it,  by  the 
cries  and  insurrections  of  the  people. 

The  states-general,  in  their  turn,  when  assembled,  instead 
of  granting  liberally,  and  teaching  the  crown  the  real  policy 
of  applying  to  them  ;  instead  of  taking,  at  all  events,  the 
opportunity  of  making  some  efforts  to  regain  their  place  in 
the  constitution,  appear  to  have  been  totally  unconscious  of 
their  situation,  and  neither  by  their  kindness  to  the  crown, 
nor  by  any  spirit  of  enterprise  for  the  people,  to  have  made 
the  slightest  attempt  to  approve  themselves  worthy  of  their 
trust. 

Again.  The  states  were  no  sooner  separated,  than  the  Duke 
of  Anjou  once  more  renewed  his  attempt  to  establish  arbitrary 
impositions,  i.  e.  once  more  exposed  himself  and  his  royal 
house  to  the  chances  of  tumult  and  insurrection.  He  was  in 
consequence  obliged  again  to  summon  the  states-general. 

Now,  what  was  the  conduct  of  the  bailliages  that  were  to 
return  their  deputies  to  this  assembly  ?  Some  of  them  sent 
no  deputies  at  all,  supposing  that  they  should  have  no  taxes 
to  pay,  inasmuch  as  they  had  not  consented  to  any  ;  the  rest 
declared,  that,  after  having  consulted  with  their  constituents, 
they  were  not  authorized  to  consent  to  any,  and  were,  on  the 
contrary,  ordered  to  announce  that  they  would  rather  try  the 
hazard  of  every  extremity. 

In  other  words,  the  people  of  France  could  not  see  that 
the  only  way  to  be  permanently  secure  from  unreasonable 
taxation,  was  to  tax  themselves  through  the  medium  of  their 
representative  assemblies.  They  could  not  discover,  that, 
when  the  domains  of  the  crown  were  no  longer  productive,  the 


FRANCE.  187 

monarch  had  a  right  to  expect  some  assistance  from  his  sub- 
jects. They  were  occupied  only  with  the  care  of  their  own 
interests,  as  they  supposed  :  with  their  own  narrow  and  there- 
fore mistaken  views  of  selfish  cunning. 

Some  of  these  bailliages  could  not  discover  that  they  must 
all  be  pillaged  and  ruined  unless  they  acted  in  concert,  and 
unless  they  at  least  appeared  together  in  the  shape  of  an  as- 
sembly ;  and  the  whole  country,  notwithstanding  the  expe- 
rience of  the  last  reign,  could  not,  it  seems,  understand  that 
the  public  cause  would  thus  be  left  once  more  to  the  insur- 
rections of  the  metropolis,  from  which  nothing  could  be  ex- 
pected but  anarchy  the  most  savage,  if  triumphant,  or  slavery 
the  most  desperate,  if  unsuccessful. 

As  if  to  complete  the  sum  total  of  national  folly,  the  clergy, 
from  whom  better  might  have  been  expected,  considering  the 
superiority  of  their  education,  conceived  that  they  were  fol- 
lowing their  own  interests  by  negotiating  with  the  crown  and 
making  a  separate  bargain. 

The  scene,  however,  soon  miserably  changed.  A  success- 
ful expedition  against  the  Flemings  and  a  victorious  army 
enabled  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  one  of  the  royal  council,  to 
return  to  Paris  and  to  settle  all  constitutional  discussions  by 
the  sword.  Every  profession  and  promise  to  the  subject, 
every  agreement  that  had  been  made  with  the  states-general 
at  any  former  period,  was  set  at  nought,  Paris  treated  as  a 
conquered  city,  its  citizens  drawn  out  (some  of  the  most  re- 
spectable) and  publicly  executed,  and  its  calamities  held  out 
as  an  example  to  every  other  description  of  the  people  to 
prove  that  the  royal  authority  was  not  to  be  resisted,  and  that 
their  franchises,  their  customs,  and  their  rights  were  all  to 
be  of  no  account,  when  opposed  to  the  sovereign  will  of  the 
prince. 

How  far  these  royal  counsellors  befriended  their  own  in- 
terests ;  how  far  they  thus  protected  themselves  from  the 
consequences  of  their  own  dissensions,  by  leaving  no  power 
to  exist,  which  they  respected  ;  how  far  they  thus  allowed 
the  people  to  be  even  worth  their  pillaging,  by  depriving 
them  of  the  rewards  of  industry  :  how  far  they  thus  enabled 
the  country  to  resist  the  English,  and  how  far  they  therefore 
consulted  their  own  individual  consequence  ;  how  far  they 


188  LECTUEE  VII. 

acted  skilfully  even  on  the  most  disgusting  principles  of  self- 
ishness and  baseness,  to  say  nothing  of  their  duty  to  their 
king,  their  country,  their  Creator  :  how  far  they  were  wise, 
even  according  to  their  own  unworthy  estimate  of  wisdom  ;  and 
how  far  the  late  monarch,  so  renowned  for  his  wisdom,  had 
been  wise  also  ;  —  the  student  will  have  ample  opportunity 
of  considering,  when  he  comes  to  survey  the  melancholy 
scenes,  which,  in  the  history  of  France,  are  now  opening  to 
his  view. 

These  scenes  can  be  little  described  by  the  words  of  a  lec- 
ture ;  they  cannot  be  conveyed  to  a  reader  even  by  an  histo- 
rian. They  are  to  be  comprised  indeed  under  the  general 
terms  of  "  the  dissensions  between  the  rival  houses  of  Bur- 
gundy and  Orleans  and  the  successes  of  the  English." 

But  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  such  was  the  exaspera- 
tion of  these  two  great  parties  in  the  state,  and  such  the  con- 
sequences of  the  inroads  of  their  English  invaders,  that  men 
seemed  no  longer  to  retain  the  proper  characteristics  of  their 
nature  ;  and  these  annals  of  the  French  nation  present  only  a 
continued  succession  of  assassinations,  massacres,  and  execu- 
tions ;  and  when  to  these  are  added  the  coronation  of  a  foreign 
enemy  (our  own'  Henry  the  Fifth),  the  long  possession  of 
France  by  the  English,  the  ravage,  the  desolation,  that  were 
the  attendants  of  such  domestic  and  foreign  war,  the  whole 
forms  together  a  darkened  scene,  which  no  human  being,  of 
whatever  nation,  can  now  contemplate  without  the  most  per- 
fect affliction  and  horror  ;  the  very  historian  might  adopt  the 
words  of  our  great  dramatic  poet. 

"  Alas,  poor  country  ! 

Almost  afraid  to  know  itself!  where  nothing 
But  who  knew  nothing,  were  once  seen  to  smile  ; 
Where  sighs  and  groans,  and  shrieks  that  rent  the  air 
Were  made,  not  marked,  —  the  dead  man's  knell 
Was  there  scarce  asked  for  whom  ;  and  good  men's  lives 
Expired  before  the  flowers  in  their  caps, 
Dying  or  ere  they  sickened." 

The  lesson  of  the  whole  I  have  intimated  to  you,  and  I 
proceed  to  other  considerations.  Our  own  Henry  the  Fifth  had 
been  crowned  king  of  France  in  the  French  capital ;  yet  was 


FRANCE.  189 

France  at  last,  after  a  bloody  conflict  of  thirty  years,  enabled 
to  expel  the  English  ;  and  one  acceptable  conclusion  from  the 
whole  may  at  length  be  drawn,  that  a  country  is  never  to  be 
despaired  of,  and  that  the  disadvantages  of  invaders  are  so 
permanent  and  irremediable,  that  in  any  tolerable  comparison 
of  strength,  all  foreign  invaders  must,  sooner  or  later,  meet 
with  their  just  overthrow,  if  a  suffering  nation  can  but  endure 
its  trial. 

From  such  sufferings,  however,  in  this  instance  of  France, 
there  was  one  result,  and  that  of  the  most  melancholy  nature, 
the  constitution  of  France  was  lost. 

After  the  decease  of  the  unhappy  Charles  the  Sixth,  whom 
we  have  just  mentioned,  the  English  were  expelled  by  his  son, 
Charles  the  Seventh.  Charles  the  Seventh  is  the  monarch 
who  was  crowned  by  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  a  heroine,  in  the 
recital  of  whose  noble  and  matchless  exploits  history  appears 
to  be  converted  into  romance,  and  whose  merits  were  so  great, 
as  to  be  thought  supernatural  by  her  contemporaries.  But  the 
enemies  of  France  were  no  sooner  driven  from  her  fields,  than 
the  prerogatives  of  the  crown  were  necessarily  strengthened, 
and  a  far  more  fatal,  because  a  far  more  lasting  enemy,  than  the 
English,  succeeded  in  the  person  of  the  sovereign  himself,  in 
the  person  of  Charles  the  Seventh.  Here  was  again  another 
instance  of  the  still  recurring  ill  fortune  of  the  constitution  of 
France.  How  was  the  nation  to  resist  a  prince  whom  they 
had  themselves  rescued  from  the  English,  and  whom  they, 
rather  than  any  spirit  of  enterprise  in  his  own  nature,  had  en- 
abled to  win  his  crown  ?  What  blessing  could  now  be  made 
either  desirable  or  intelligible  to  Frenchmen,  but  that  of  peace 
and  repose  ?  What  could  there  be  of  alarm  or  terror  in  the 
prerogative  of  the  crown,  to  those  who  had  seen  an  invader 
on  the  throne  ?  Before  the  ministers  of  the  power  of  Charles, 
to  the  afflicted  imagination  of  the  French  people,  must  have 
walked  the  spectres  of  their  slaughtered  countrymen,  and  the 
frowning  warriors  of  England  ;  and  slavery  itself,  if  it  was  not 
foreign  slavery,  must  to  them  have  appeared  a  state  of  happi- 
ness and  triumph. 

That  fatal  measure,  fatal  for  the  liberties  of  his  country,  was 
now  taken  by  Charles  the  Seventh,  by  which  his  reign  must  be 
for  ever  distinguished,  the  establishment  of  a  military  force, 


190  LECTURE  VII. 

and  the  allotment  of  a  perpetual  tax  for   the    support   of  it, 
unchecked  by  any  representative  assembly. 

This  military  force  and  tax  might  not  be  formidable  in  their 
first  appearance  ;  but,  the  principle  once  admitted,  both  the 
force  and  the  tax  were  easily  advanced  step  by  step,  to  any 
extent  that  suited  the  views  of  each  succeeding  monarch.  Ex- 
cuses, and  even  reasonable  considerations  (reasonable  to  those 
who  see  not  the  importance  of  a  precedent  and  a  principle,) 
can  never  be  wanting  on  these  occasions  :  they  were  not  want- 
ing on  this. 

It  should  be  observed  that  this  vital  blow  to  the  real  great- 
ness of  France  was  introduced  as  a  reform.  If  any  of  those 
who  were  living  at  the  time  had  spoken  of  the  probable 
consequences  of  such  a  precedent,  and  had  insisted  upon  its 
danger  to  the  best  interests  of  their  country,  they  would  only 
have  been  disregarded  or  suspected  of  disloyalty.  But  no 
stronger  instance  can  be  given,  if  any  were  necessary,  of  the 
importance  of  a  principle  at  all  times  ;  a  precedent  may  not 
be  often  carried  into  all  its  consequences  when  favorable  to 
the  liberties  of  a  country,  but  it  always  is,  when  it  is  other- 
wise. 

Even  in  a  French  historian  like  Villaret,  the  detail  of  this 
great  measure  is  very  instructive.  It  is  very  instructive  to  see 
the  manner  in  which  a  nation,  from  a  sense  of  present  uneasi- 
ness, forgets,  as  it  is  always  disposed  to  do,  all  its  more  remote 
and  essential  interests  ;  and  the  more  this  memorable  transac- 
tion could  be  examined,  the  more  complete  and  striking  would, 
no  doubt,  be  found  the  lesson  which  it  affords. 

When  this  military  force  and  tax  had  been  once  established, 
and  both  removed  (which  is  the  important  point)  entirely  from 
all  check  and  control  by  any  other  legitimate  authority  in  the 
state,  the  power  of  the  crown  had  no  more  tempests  to  encoun- 
ter ;  no  further  contest  appears  in  the  succeeding  reigns  ;  the 
person  of  the  king  might  be  insulted  or  endangered,  but  not  the 
royal  authority.  We  hear  of  no  more  struggles  for  the  privi- 
leges of  the  people,  and  for  the  right  of  taxation  ;  no  more  im- 
portant meetings  of  the  slates-general ;  all  hope,  at  least  all 
assertion,  of  constitutional  liberty  was  at  an  end  ;  and  the  con- 
tentions of  the  great,  who  were  alone  left  to  contend,  were 
directed  solely  to  the  questions  of  their  own  personal  ambition. 


FRANCE.  191 

If  any  hope  for  France  yet  remained,  it  expired  under  the 
reign  of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  the  son  and  successor  of  Charles. 
This  prince  was  of  all  others  the  most  fitted  to  destroy  the  lib- 
erties of  his  country  ;  penetrating,  sagacious,  cautious,  well 
considering  the  proportion  between  his  means  and  his  ends  ;  a 
finished  dissembler  of  his  own  interests  and  passions,  and  a 
skilful  master  of  those  of  others  ;  decisive,  active,  and  entirely 
devoid  of  principle  and  feeling.  The  nobles  made  an  ineffec- 
tual effort  to  retain  some  of  that  political  power,  which,  if  they 
lost  it,  was  destined,  all  of  it,  to  fall  entirely  into  the  possession 
of  the  crown,  and  this  effort  was  made  in  the  war,  for  the  pub- 
lic good,  as  they  affected  to  call  it.  But  Louis  contrived  to 
cajole,  overpower,  or  wield  to  the  purposes  of  his  ambition  the 
king  of  England,  the  duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the  Swiss.  He 
increased  the  standing  army,  raised  the  taille  to  the  most  enor- 
mous amount,  made  this  lax  a  step  to  the  introduction  of  other 
imposts,  reunited  many  important  fiefs  to  the  crown  ;  and,  if 
men  could  acquire  glory  by  the  successful  enterprises  of  ungen- 
erous ambition  ;  if  happiness  could  be  the  consequence  of 
cruelty  and  oppression,  deceit  and  fraud  ;  if  any  treasures  or 
any  possessions  could  be  compared  with  the  consciousness  of 
being  loved  and  respected,  then,  indeed,  Louis  the  Eleventh 
might  have  been  thought  the  renowned,  the  powerful,  and  the 
happy  ;  and  this  detestable  tyrant  might  have  been  held  up  by 
courtiers  and  courtly  writers,  as  the  envy  of  all  succeeding 
monarchs.  A  different  conclusion  is,  however,  to  be  drawn 
from  the  picture  of  his  life  and  character,  which  fortunately  has 
been  exhibited  to  us  by  Philip  de  Commines,  a  faithful  and  con- 
fidential minister,  who  knew  him  thoroughly,  and  who  appears 
even  to  have  been  attached  to  his  person  and  memory,  in  defi- 
ance of  his  better  judgment,  by  the  influence  of  the  kind  treat- 
ment which  he  had  personally  received  from  him,  as  his  master. 

The  king,  it  seems,  successful  in  his  intrigues,  unresisted  in 
bis  oppressions,  and  with  nothing  further  to  apprehend  from 
his  rivals  or  his  enemies,  was  at  last  admonished  of  the  frailty 
of  all  human  grandeur  by  messengers  far  more  ominous  and 
dreadful,  than  the  couriers  and  officers  that  announce  the 
miscarriage  of  ambitious  projects  or  the  defeats  of  invading 
armies  ;  he  was  seized  by  a  first  and  then  a  second  fit  of 
epilepsy,  so  violent  and  long,  that  he  lay  without  speech,  and 


192  LECTURE  VII. 

apparently  without  life,  till  bis  attendants  concluded  that  he 
was  no  more.  To  life,  indeed,  he  returned,  but  all  the  com- 
forts of  existence  were  gone  for  ever.  "  He  came  back  to 
Tours  (says  the  historian  Commines,  I  quote  his  own  artless 
words),  where  he  kept  himself  so  close,  that  very  few  were 
admitted  to  see  him  ;  for  he  was  grown  jealous  of  all  his 
courtiers,  and  afraid  they  would  either  depose  or  deprive  him 
of  some  part  of  his  royal  authority:  he  did  many  odd  things, 
which  made  some  believe  that  his  senses  were  impaired  ;  but 
they  knew  not  his  humors.  As  to  his  jealousy,  all  princes  are 
prone  to  it,  especially  those  who  are  wise,  have  many  enemies, 
and  have  oppressed  many  people,  as  our  master  had  done.  Be- 
sides, he  found  that  he  was  not  beloved  by  the  nobility  of  the 
kingdom,  nor  by  many  of  the  commons,  for  he  had  taxed  them 
more  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  though  he  now  had  some 
thoughts  of  easing  them,  as  I  said  before ;  but  he  should  have 
begun  sooner.  Nobody  was  admitted  into  the  place  in  which 
he  kept  himself  but  his  domestic  servants  and  his  archers, 
which  were  four  hundred,  some  of  which  kept  constant  guard 
at  the  gate,  while  others  walked  continually  about  to  prevent 
his  being  surprised.  Round  about  the  castle  he  caused  a  lat- 
tice, or  iron  gate,  to  be  set  up,  spikes  of  iron  planted  in  the 
wall,  and  a  kind  of  crow's  feet,  with  several  points,  to  be 
placed  along  the  ditch,  wherever  there  was  a  possibility  for  any 
person  to  enter.  Besides  which  he  caused  watchhouses  to  be 
made,  all  of  thick  iron,  and  full  of  holes,  out  of  which  they 
might  shoot  at  their  pleasure,  in  which  .he  placed  forty  of  his 
cross-bows,  who  were  to  be  on  their  guard  night  and  day.  He 
left  no  person  of  whom  he  had  any  suspicion  either  in  town  or 
country,  but  he  sent  his  archers  not  only  to  warn,  but  to 
conduct  them  away.  To  look  upon  him,  one  would  have 
thought,  him  to  be  rather  a  dead  than  a  living  man.  No  person 
durst  ask  a  favor,  or  scarce  speak  to  him  about  any  thing.  He 
inflicted  very  severe  punishments,  removed  officers,  disbanded 
soldiers." 

Such  is  the  picture  of  the  historian  ;  —  the  tyrant  of  the  poet 
is  only  described  more  concisely  : 

"Heliad  lived  long  enough:  his  way  of  life 
Was  fallen  into  the  sear,  the  yellow  teaf : 


FRANCE.  193 

And  that  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends, 
He  could  not  look  to  have  ;  but  in  their  stead, 
Curses,  not  loud,  but  deep,  mouth -honor,  breath, 
Which  the  poor  heart  would  fain  deny,  and  dare  not." 


By  clothes  more  rich  and  magnificent  than  before ;  by  pass- 
ing his  time  in  subjecting  those  around  him  to  every  variety 
of  fortune,  to  the  changes  of  his  smile  and  of  his  frown  ;  by 
filling  distant  countries  with  his  agents,  to  purchase  for  him 
rarities,  which,  when  brought  to  him,  he  heeded  not ;  by  every 
strange  and  ridiculous  expedient  that  his  uneasy  fancy  could 
devise  ;  by  all  this  idle  bustle  and  parade  of  royalty  and  power, 
did  this  helpless,  wretched  man  endeavour  to  conceal  from  the 
world  and  himself  the  horrid  characters  of  death  which  were 
visible  on  his  frame;  the  fearful  handwriting  which  had  told 
him,  that  his  kingdom  was  departing  from  him.  In  vain  did 
he  send  for  the  holy  man  of  Calabria,  and  on  his  approach 
u  fall  down,"  says  the  historian,  u  on  his  knees  before  him, 
and  beg  him  to  prolong  his  life."  In  vain  was  the  holy  vial 
brought  from  Rheims  ;  the  vest  of  St.  Peter  sent  him  by  the 
pope.  "  Whatever  was  thought  conducible  to  his  health," 
says  Philip  de  Commines,  "  was  sent  to  him  from  all  corners 
of  the  world.  His  subjects  trembled  at  his  nod,"  he  observes, 
"  and  whatever  he  commanded  was  executed  ;  but  it  was  in 
vain.  He  could  indeed  command  the  beggar's  knee,  but  not 
the  health  of  it  :"  and,  suspicious  of  every  one,  of  his  son-in- 
law,  his  daughter,  and  his  own  son,  having  turned  his  palace 
into  a  prison  for  himself;  into  a  cage,  not  unlike  those  which 
in  his  hours  of  cruelty  he  had  made  for  others  ;  insulted 
by  his  physician,  and  considered  by  his  faithful  minister  as 
expiating,  by  his  torments  in  this  world,  the  crimes,  which, 
as  he  says,  would  otherwise  have  brought  down  upon  him 
the  punishments  of  the  Almighty  in  the  next,  this  poor  king, 
for  such  we  are  reduced  at  last  to  call  him,  expired  in  his 
castle,  a  memorable  example,  that  whatever  be  the  station 
or  the  success,  nothing  can  compensate  for  the  want  of  in- 
nocence, and  that,  amid  the  intrigues  of  cunning  and  the  pro- 
jects of  ambition,  the  first  policy  which  is  to  be  learned  is 
the  policy  of  virtue. 

VOL.  i.  25 


NOTES. 

1819 

I. 

IT  is  many  years  since  I  drew  up  this  lecture,  and  I  now  read  with  pleas- 
ure a  note  in  Mr.  Hallam's  Middle  Ages,  when  treating  of  the  same  period. 

"  I  would  advise,"  says  he,  "  the  historical  student  to  acquaint  himself 
with  those  transactions  (the  Flemish  insurrections),  and  with  the  corre- 
sponding tumults  of  Paris  :  they  are  among  the  eternal  lessons  of  history  ; 
for  the  unjust  encroachments  of  courts,  the  intemperate  passions  of  the  mul- 
titude, the  ambition  of  demagogues,  the  cruelty  of  victorious  factions,  will 
never  cease  to  have  their  parallels  and  their  analogies ;  while'the  military 
achievements  of  distant  forces  afford,  in  general,  no  instruction,  and  can 
hardly  occupy  too  little  of  our  time  in  historical  studies." — Page  91,  chap.  i. 
part  2. 

Joinville  and  Froissart  must  be  read  for  graphic  representations  of  these 
and  former  times. 

II. 

AT  the  accession  of  Philip  de  Valois,  the  great  fiefs  of  Burgundy,  Flanders, 
and  Brittany  were  all  that  had  not,  in  some  way  or  other,  been  connected 
with  the  crown. 

III. 

THE  great  founder  of  the  French  monarchy  was  Philip-Augustus.  He 
wrested  from  the  English  their  possessions,  then  amounting  to  a  third  of  the 
kingdom. 

IV. 

WHATEVER  the  feudal  system  lost,  seems,  in  France,  to  have  been  ac- 
quired by  the  monarchy.  The  independence  and  sovereignty  of  the  barons 
insensibly  declined ;  the  jurisprudence  of  the  country  gradually  passed  into 
the  courts  of  the  sovereigns. 

The  States-general  were  occasionally  assembled,  and  appear  to  have  rep- 
resented the  weight  and  authority  of  the  whole  community. 

In  this  body  were  found,  as  a  distinct  part,  the  commons,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  cities  and  towns. 

If  the  power  that  was  flowing  from  the  feudal  system  to  the  crown  could 
have  been  in  part  intercepted  by  the  courts  of  law  and  the  assemblies  of  the 


NOTES.  195 

nation,  the  result  would  have  been  a  free  and  mixed  constitution.  Such 
was  the  result  in  England  from  beginnings  not  more  promising. 

A  comparison  of  the  different  circumstances  that  operated  upon  the  con- 
stitutions of  the  two  countries,  should  be  made  by  the  student,  as  he  reads 
the  history. 

The  Abbe  de  Mably  will  be  of  great  use ;  and  two  notes  in  Robertson, 
see  his  Charles  the  Fifth,  notes  38,  39. 

V. 

HISTORIANS,  with  the  exception  of  Hume,  are  so  ignorant  of  the  modem 
science  of  political  economy  (particularly  all  original  historians^,  that  their 
narratives  can  only  be  appealed  to,  on  such  subjects,  with  the  greatest  cir- 
cumspection. 

They  state  their  facts,  and  generally  add,  without  authority,  such  conse- 
quences as  they  conceive  must  of  course  have  followed.  Their  relations  are 
therefore  filled  with  impossibilities. 

VI. 

French  History. 

VELLY  is  the  great  historian  of  the  early  part  of  the  annals  of  this  great 
kingdom ;  Villaret  continued  the  work  ;  afterwards  Gamier  :  it  has  not  yet 
reached  the  more  interesting  parts  of  the  French  history. 

Villartt  is  considered  by  Baron  Grimm  (a  very  competent  judgej  as  one 
of  those  few  writers  who  have  been  able  to  continue  a  work  with  more  suc- 
cess than  a  successful  predecessor. 

The  work  was  paid  by  the  volume,  and  probably  thus  rendered  longer 
than  necessary. 

Jacquerie.  — There  is  a  short  account  of  this  insurrection  given  by  Froia- 
sart;  i.  e.  some  of  the  shocking  facts  are  given. 

About  the  same  time  broke  out  the  rising  of  the  people  under  Watt  Tyler. 

A  more  philosophic  notice  of  these  insurrections  in  France  and  England 
is  taken  by  Hume. 

In  these  cases  the  people  seem  in  their  claims  (not  in  their  conduct)  to 
have  been  right:  they  were  endeavouring  to  throw  off  the  state  of  villeinage, 
or  at  least  some  of  the  oppressions  of  it.  The  subject,  however,  is  of  a  gen- 
eral nature.  The  inequalities  of  condition,  as  they  take  place  in  society, 
have  always  appeared  to  the  lower  orders  an  intolerable  injustice.  From 
reasonable  views  and  claims,  they  have  often  proceeded  to  those,  that  were 
not  reasonable  :  and  the  grossest  doctrines  of  liberty  and  equality  have  often 
made  their  appearance,  as  they  always  will,  when  the  minds  of  the  vulgar 
are  in  a  state  of  fermentation. 

Yet  it  must  be  observed,  that  to  men  of  refinement  and  sensibility,  still 
more  to  men  of  sarcastic  nature,  the  inequalities  of  condition  seem  so  preg- 
nant with  evil,  that  the  most  affecting  declamations,  as  in  the  works  of 
Rousseau,  have  been  produced  by  the  contemplation  of  them ;  while,  in 


196  NOTES. 

Swift  and  others,  they  have  given  occasion  to  the  most  piercing  invectives 
under  different  disguises. 

In  men  of  a  more  speculative  turn  (Godwin,  for  instance,),  they  have 
urged  men  to  the  contrivance  of  political  systems,  and  the  most  unreasona- 
ble impatience  under  every  existing  system. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  from  this  source  were  derived  most  of  the  evils 
of  the  late  French  revolution. 

Metaphysical  speculation,  at  least  that  sort  of  philosophy  which  hopes  and 
presumes  whatever  it  pleases  of  human  nature,  and  has  a  calm  and  perse- 
vering logic  for  ever  at  hand,  such  speculation  and  philosophy  were  never 
silenced  completely,  till  the  refutation  of  Godwin  appeared  in  Mr.  Malthus's 
first  Essay  on  Population. 

Books,  like  Godwin's,  harmless  and  almost  ridiculous  as  they  may  be 
in  ordinary  times,  are  no  longer  so  when  the  times  are  of  a  different 
description. 

VII. 

Conquests  in  France,  8fC. 

SELF-ESTIMATION  in  a  nation,  as  in  an  individual,  is  necessary  to  the 
virtue  and  dignity  of  the  human  character.  But  it  is  productive  in  each, 
sometimes  of  follies,  sometimes  of  serious  faults.  It  should  be  the  result  of 
slow  and  gradual  inferences  of  the  understanding,  as  much  as  possible ;  and 
not  be,  as  it  commonly  is,  a  passion  of  the  heart. 

In  a  nation,  as  in  an  individual,  it  leads  to  irritable  jealousy,  unaccommo- 
dating and  offensive  haughtiness,  selfishness,  violence,  injustice. 

Its  common  direction  is  that  of  military  glory;  and  as  far  as  such  a 
principle  is  necessary  to  national  defence  and  independence,  it  is  indispen- 
sably requisite  to  a  virtuous  people. 

Far  different  has  been  its  general  operation,  as  seen  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  as  seen  in  the  times  of  our  Edwards  and  our  Henries.  The  kings 
and  heroes  of  our  land  were  transformed  into  destroyers  and  oppressors. 


VIII. 


THE  work  of  De  Lolme  is  too  indiscriminate  a  panegyric  on  the  English 
constitution.  But  his  great  position  is,  in  the  main,  not  unreasonable. 
That  the  difference  of  the  constitutions  of  France  and  England  is  to  be 
attributed  to  the  original  difference  in  the  power  of  the  crown,  —  to  the 
power  of  the  crown  being  greater  in  England. 

In  England,  as  the  barons,  however  powerful,  were  far  inferior  to  the 
king,  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  whole  landed  property  must  have  passed 
through  the  hands  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  been  granted  on  his  own 
terms.  They  could  not  therefore  struggle  against  the  crown  for  their  own 
liberties,  without  assistance,  and  without  struggling  at  the  same  time  for 
those  of  their  inferiors.  The  whole  community  was  thrown  into  one  scale. 


NOTES.  197 

There  were  many  circumstances  favorable  to  England,  which  the  student 
must  consider  :  he  will  find  them  in  Millar,  more  particularly. 

The  scene  of  the  contest  was  an  island,  where  the  influence  of  commerce 
was  likely  to  be  soon  felt,  and  the  cities  and  towns  become  important. 

The  necessity  of  a  military  force  constantly  ready  to  oppose  invasion  was 
not  so  pressing ;  and  the  excuse  for  a  standing  army  not  so  plausible. 
England  being  a  country  less  extensive,  did  not  so  readily  fall  into  great 
principalities.  The  union  of  the  whole  was  more  natural  and  immediate. 
The  different  parts  of  the  parliament  could  sympathize  with  each  other ; 
and  the  whole  had  thus  a  better  chance  to  maintain  its  existence  and 
authority. 

The  crown  was  not,  as  in  France,  transmitted  from  father  to  son  for  three 
centuries. 

Usurpations,  disputed  successions,  &c.  &c.  were  in  England  all  favor- 
able ;  for  whatever  induced  or  compelled  the  wearers  of  the  crown  to  make 
use  of  the  parliaments  was  favorable. 

This  is  the  general  principle  ;  the  detail  may  be  seen  in  Millar ;  the  par- 
ticular situation  of  William  Rufus,  Henry  the  First,  Stephen,  &c.,all  favora- 
ble to  the  existence  and  authority  of  the  parliaments.  Even  in  the  civil  wars 
the  parliaments  were  appealed  to  by  each  party  in  its  turn. 

The  danger  no  doubt  was  when  the  aristocracy  had  been  consumed  in  the 
civil  wars,  and  Henry  the  Seventh  and  Henry  the  Eighth  had  not  only 
the  opportunity,  but  the  ability,  to  seize  all  the  authority  that  seemed  now 
left  without  an  occupant ;  or  rather  to  enforce  and  extend  all  the  natural 
authority  of  the  crown,  when  there  was  nothing  left  to  oppose  it. 

But  the  parliaments  had  in  the  mean  time  got  established,  and  their  authority 
had  become  identified  in  the  minds  of  the  community  with  the  nature  of  all 
just  and  legitimate  government. 

The  virtues  as  well  as  the  vices  of  our  kings  tended,  in  a  military  age,  to 
render  them  expensive ;  and  neither  their  domains  nor  exactions  could 
provide  for  their  follies,  in  the  one  instance,  or  their  ambition  in  the  other. 
They  had  continually  to  summon  parliaments  for  fresh  supplies. 

The  nation  was  thus  made  wise  (that  is,  jealous  of  the  power  of  their 
princes)  in  the  only  way,  in  which  a  nation  can  ever  be  made  wise,  by  their 
own  personal  sufferings  and  inconveniences. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  parliaments  were  on  one  occasion  or  another 
guilty  of  every  crime  which  they  could  commit  against  their  country,  but 
that  of  parting  with  the  right  of  taxation. 

Reason,  justice,  humanity,  they  disposed  of  to  the  strongest.  But  in 
defence  of  their  property  they  united  the  qualities  of  the  fabled  beings  of 
antiquity,  and  had  the  eyes  of  Argus  and  the  hands  of  Briareus. 

The  primitive  House  of  Commons  consisted  of  burgesses  only.  But  the 
deputies  from  the  counties  (as  being  deputies)  came  in  time  to  sit  and 
deliberate  along  with  them  ;  and  these  deputies  were  interested  in  the 
taxes  that  were  to  be  paid  by  the  landed  gentry.  The  great  barons  and 
peers  were  great  landed  proprietors  also. 

Tenths  and  fifteenths  were  taxes  on  private  property,  subsidies  on  real 
and  personal  property. 

The  great  proprietors  thus  fortunately  became  interested  in  opposing  the 


198  NOTES. 

illegal  expedients  of  the  crown  for  raising  money  from  the  subject ;  and 
in  the  general  management  of  the  taxation  of  the  community,  no  general 
assessment  could  be  made  without  the  concurrence  of  the  representatives  of 
every  species  of  property. 

The  weaker  house  must  have  long  derived  considerable  advantage  from 
this  connexion  and  common  interest  with  the  House  of  Lords. 

Nothing  can  be  more  amusing  than  to  observe  the  language  and  feelings 
of  terrified  poverty,  with  which  the  commons  approached  their  betters,  as 
they  would  have  been  called,  when  money  was  wanted  from  them. 

In  France,  though  the  national  assemblies  or  states-general  expired,  they 
could  not  be  obliterated  from  its  history. 

Some  vestiges  of  their  powers  till  survived  :  among  others,  the  regis- 
tering of  the  king's  edicts,  which  descended  to  the  parliaments,  not 
analogous  to  our  parliaments,  but  legal  bodies,  who  claimed  the  exercise 
of  this  power  in  the  absence,  that  is,  during  the  interval  of  the  sittings  of 
the  states-general. 

Of  this  remnant  of  their  power  advantage  was  taken  many  centuries 
afterwards,  in  the  late  revolution.  So  important  are  even  the  decayed 
forms  of  a  free  constitution,  or  rather  so  much  does,  and  must  always 
depend  on  the  spirit  of  the  community,  and  the  interpretation  which  the 
same  things  receive,  according  as  that  spirit  does,  or  does  not  exist. 

In  Tacitus  we  see  that  the  multitude  took  a  part  in  the  national  coun- 
cils. Even  in  these  simple  and  rude  times  much  difficulty  and  delay  was 
the  result.  These  assemblies,  in  the  progress  of  society,  came  naturally 
to  be  composed  of  the  great  landed  proprietors,  afterwards  of  those  who 
held  benefices  and  fiefs.  The  common  people  were  thus  excluded.  But 
when  there  arose  in  the  community  a  new  part  of  the  population,  which 
was  neither  vassal  nor  lord,  nor  came  under  any  of  the  existing  distinc- 
tions ;  still  more,  when  a  contrivance  had  presented  itself  (that  of  repre- 
sentation), by  which  the  will  of  the  people,  or  any  free  part  of  it,  could  be 
expressed  as  in  the  original  assemblies,  but  without  the  original  delay  and 
difficulty  ;  it  then  became  clear,  that  an  addition  ought  to  be  made  to  the 
existing  national  assemblies,  whatever  they  might  be,  not  only  on  grounds 
of  civil  expediency  or  natural  right,  but  even  of  original  prescription;  that 
is,  the  people  were  now,  through  the  medium  of  their  representatives,  to  be 
readmitted. 

Paragraphs  are  often  to  be  found  in  Hume  inconsistent  with  the  general 
effect  produced  by  his  history. 

At  the  end  of  his  reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  he  sums  up  his  general  es- 
timate thus :  — "  A  great  prince  rendered  the  monarchical  power  predominant. 
The  weakness  of  a  king  gave  reins  to  the  aristocracy,  —  a  superstitious  age 
saw  the  clergy  triumphant.  The  people,  for  whom  government  was  chiefly 
instituted,  and  who  chiefly  deserve  consideration,  were  the  weakest  of  the 
whole." 

«  Naturam  expellas  furca,"  &c.  &c.  Hume,  though  a  party  writer,  was 
still  a  man  of  humanity  and  good  sense. 

The  following  specimen  may  be  given  of  the  discordance  that  often  exists 
between  different  historians  ;  between  Rapin  and  Hume,  for  instance. 

Mr.  Hume,  in  his  account  of  the  deposition  of  Richard  the  Second,  and 


NOTES.  199 

of  the  articles  of  accusation  exhibited  against  him,  makes  the  following  ob- 
servation :  —  "  There  is,  however,  one  circumstance  in  which  his  conduct 
is  visibly  different  from  that  of  his  grandfather,  Edward  the  Third.  He  is 
not  accused  of  having  imposed  one  arbitrary  tax  without  consent  of  par- 
liament during  his  whole  reign." 

But  on  turning  to  the  history  of  Rapin,  the  fifteenth  article  of  the  accu- 
sation of  the  Commons  as  there  exhibited,  expressly  charges  Richard  with 
illegal  impositions,  — "  Qu'il  avoit  impose  des  taxes  sur  ses  sujets  da  sa 
seule  autorite." 

The  student  is  now  desired  to  observe  the  extreme  nicety  which  belongs 
to  all  investigations  of  this  nature,  and  to  all  quotations  of  historians. 

For  another  or  second  reader  of  history  might  now  come  and  say,  that 
Rapin  had  said  nothing  of  the  kind :  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  fifteenth 
article,  as  given  by  Rapin  ran  thus  :  — 

"  Art.  15.  Whereas  the  kings  of  England  used  to  live  upon  the  reven- 
ues of  the  kingdom  and  patrimony  of  the  crown  in  time  of  peace,  without 
oppression  of  their  people ;  that  the  same  king,  during  his  whole  time, 
gave  the  greatest  part  of  his  revenue  to  unworthy  persons,  and  imposed 
burdens  upon  his  subjects,  granted  as  it  icere  every  year,  by  which  he 
excessively  oppressed  his  people  and  impoverished  his  kingdom,  not  em- 
ploying these  goods  to  the  advantage  of  the  nation,  but  prodigally  wasting 
them  in  ostentation,  pomp,  and  glory  ;  owing  great  sums  for  victuals  and 
other  necessaries  of  his  own  house,  though  his  revenues  were  greater  than 
any  of  his  progenitors." 

What  is  there  here,  the  second  student  would  say,  of  the  king's  imposing 
taxes  on  his  own  authority  ? 

And  while  these  two  students  might  stand,  each  quoting  Rapin,  and 
appealing  to  the  very  books  they  had  perhaps  seen  not  an  hour  before, 
another  and  a  third  reader  of  history  might  also  come  forward,  and  say  that 
the  first  student  was  right ;  that  he  had  just  read  the  fifteenth  article 
in  Rapin's  history,  and  that  it  was  expressed  as  he  had  stated,  and  in  the 
following  words  :  —  "  That  he  had  imposed  taxes  upon  his  subjects  on  his 
own  authoriry." 

What  a  perplexity  and  contradiction  are  here  !  Yet  it  would  turn  out, 
upon  examination,  that  these  three  students  or  readers  of  history  were,  in  a 
certain  sense  of  the  word,  all  right. 

For  the  first  had  quoted  the  folio  edition  of  Rapin,  given  in  the  original 
French. 

The  second  had  quoted  the  folio  edition  of  Rapin,  as  translated  by  Tindal. 
But  it  happens,  that  Tindal  very  properly  takes  the  trouble,  on  this  occasion, 
not  of  translating  Rapin,  but  of  translating  the  original  articles  of  accusation 
from  the  rolls  of  parliament ;  and  the  fifteenth  article,  when  translated  from 
the  real  original,  gives  not  the  words  of  Rapin,  but  runs  to  the  length  and 
exhibits  the  words,  as  presented  by  Tindal,  "  Whereas  the  kings  of  Eng- 
land," &c.  &c. 

Finally,  the  third  student  might  have  been  quoting  the  common  octavo 
edition  of  Rapin  in  English,  where  the  fifteenth  article  is  not,  as  in  TindaPs 
folio  translation,  a  translation  of  the  original  roll  of  parliament,  but  a  mere 
translation  of  the  French  of  Rapin,  the  French  of  the  first  folio  edition,  which 


200  NOTES. 

*"  is  wrong,  and  Rapin's  own  view  of  the  case;  — "  Qu'il  avoit  impose  des 

taxes  de  sa  seule  autorite." 

Supposing  now,  therefore,  that  recourse  was  had,  after  the  example  of 
Tindal,  to  the  only  real  authority,  the  rolls  of  parliament  (they  are  published 
with  the  journals,  and  therefore  easily  accessible) ;  and  then  the  important 
words  in  the  fifteenth  article  will  be  found  to  be  these  :  — 

"  Non  solum  magnam,  immo  maximam  paitem  dicti  partrimonii  sui 
donaret  etiam  personis  indiums,  verum  etiam  propterea  tot  onera  concessionis 
subditorum  imposuit  quasi  annis  singulis  in  regno  suo,  quod  valde  et  nimium 
et  excessive  populum  suum  oppresserit  in  depauperationem  regni  sui," 
&c.  &c. 

Now  in  these  words,  "  tot  onera  concessionis  subditorum,"  &c.  there  is 
a  sufficient  obscurity  to  admit  of  a  different  interpretation  by  a  Whig  like 
Rapin,  or  a  Tory  like  Hume,  though  the  latter  seems  far  more  justified  in 
his  representation  than  the  former ;  for  it  is  the  prodigality  of  the  king, 
rather  than  the  illegality  of  his  conduct,  that  is  evidently  all  throughout  the 
articles  the  great  burden  of  the  accusation.  — that  he  had  wasted  the  money 
of  the  people  of  England,  rather  than  that  he  had  offended  against  their 
constitutional  rights. 

There  is  a  history  of  Louis  the  Ninth,  by  Duclos,  a  work  that  was  much 
noticed  in  France  ;  but  it  seems  to  be  justly  observed  by  a  late  French  writer 
(Chamfort),  that  it  is  written  in  a  spirit  far  too  complaisant,  very  different 
from  that  with  which  the  "  Memoirs  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,"  &c.  (by  the 
same  author)  are  composed. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  philosophy  of  the  history  of  this  reign  (Louis  the 
Eleventh),  cannot  be  found  in  the  work  of  Duclos. 

It  is  said,  indeed,  that  it  was  the  object  of  the  reign  to  break  down  the 
power  of  the  great,  and  to  keep  them  from  tyrannizing  over  the  people  ; 
which  is  probably  what  was  said  by  Louis  himself,  for  it  is  always  said  on 
such  occasions. 

It  is  observed,  too,  that  the  royal  authority  has  ever  since  been  advancing 
by  the  motion  which  was  impressed  upon  it  by  Louis  the  Eleventh. 

But  the  steps  by  which  all  this  was  done,  and  the  consequences,  are  no' 
where  exhibited  to  the  reader. 

Duclos,  before  his  history  went  to  publication,  had  to  receive  the  appro- 
bation of  a  licenser ;  and  it  was  in  vain,  therefore,  that  he  was  competent 
both  to  write  well  and  think  well. 

Philosophical  instruction  must  be  still  gathered  from  Commines,  whose 
omissions  Duclos  intended  to  supply,  as  well  as  to  correct  his  mistakes ; 
"  though  they  are  not  commonly  of  great  consequence,"  he  tells  us. 

Duclos  had  all  the  facts  before  him,  and  he  gives  them. 

Montesquieu  is  understood  to  have  devoted  much  time  to  the  subject;  but 
there  is  a  strange  story  of  his  losing  his  manuscripts  by  an  accident,  and  of 
his  then  abandoning  all  further  thoughts  of  the  work. 

Philip  de  Commines  is  the  author  read. 

Much  of  his  work,  particularly  the  latter  part  of  it,  should  be  read.  The 
important  features  of  it  are  the  fate  of  the  house  of  Purgundy,  and  the  unjust 
encroachments  of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  on  the  dominions  of  his  neighbours, 
and  the  constitution  of  his  country. 


NOTES.  201 

Commines  came  not  into  the  service  of  Louis  till  he  had  been  twelve 
years  on  the  throne. 

It  cannot  be  now  understood  by  what  felicity  of  original  temperament,  or 
by  what  influence  of  reflection,  the  historian  himself  could  be  a  lover  of  the 
people  and  a  lover  of  virtue,  though  a  courtier  from  his  infancy,  the  servant 
of  the  most  base  and  selfish  of  princes,  and  living  in  habits  of  business  and 
society  with  many  of  the  most  licentious  and  unprincipled  of  men. 

"  Is  there  any  king,"  he  says,  "  or  prince  upon  earth  who  has  power  to 
raise  one  penny  of  money,  except  his  domains,  without  the  consent  of  the 
poor  subject  who  is  to  pay  it,  but  by  tyranny  and  violence  ?  " 

"  King  Charles  the  Seventh,"  he  says,  in  another  place,  "  has  laid  a  great 
load  both  upon  his  own  and  the  souls  of  his  successors,  and  given  his  king- 
dom a  wound  which  shall  bleed  a  long  time  ;  and  that  was,  by  establishing  a 
standing  army." 

The  manners  of  these  dreadful  times  in  France,  during  the  factions  of  the 
houses  of  Orleans  and  Burgundy,  and  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  may 
be  seen  in  Brantome  ;  and  more  conveniently  in  Wraxall's  Memoirs  of  the 
House  of  Valois. 


VOL.  i.  26 


LECTURE  VIII. 

SPAIN,  GERMANY,  ITALY,  SWITZERLAND. 

IN  my  last  lecture,  I  endeavoured  to  call  your  attention  to 
the  constitutional  history  of  France.  I  did  so,  because  this 
is  one  of  the  first  objects  of  importance  in  the  history  of  Eu- 
rope, from  the  effects  which  that  great  kingdom  has  always 
been  fitted,  from  its  situation  and  natural  advantages,  to  pro- 
duce upon  every  other.  Such  must  always  have  been  the 
influence  of  its  arms  and  its  example,  that  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  that  the  history  of  the  civilized  world  would  have 
been  changed,  and  most  favorably  changed,  if  France  had  not 
lost  its  constitutional  liberties,  and  sunk  into  an  arbitrary  mon- 
archy. 

But  the  same  subject  is  of  great  interest  to  ourselves,  from 
the  illustration  which  it  affords  of  the  merits  and  the  good  for- 
tune of  our  ancestors.  This  island  lost  not  its  liberties  in  like 
manner,  because  it  retained  its  public  assemblies,  and  because 
they  retained  the  right  of  taxation. 

How,  therefore,  or  why,  arose  this  difference  in  the  fate  of 
the  two  kingdoms  ? 

It  is  this  question  that  I  am  so  anxious  that  you  should  bear 
along  with  you  in  your  thoughts,  while  you  read  the  annals 
of  every  other  country  of  Europe  ;  and,  the  more  strongly  to 
impress  it  on  your  minds,  I  pointed  out  to  you,  in  my  last  lec- 
ture, a  very  remarkable  epoch  in  the  French  history,  during 
which,  there  was  evidently  some  great  effort  made  for  the  con- 
stitution of  France,  by  the  members  of  the  States-General, 
and  particularly  by  the  third  estate,  and  by  Marcel  and  the 
Parisians. 

I  next  alluded  to  those  parts  of  the  subsequent  reigns, 
when  the  liberties  of  that  country  were  more  slowly  under- 


SPAIN.  203 

mined,  but  not  less  fatally  attacked,  particularly  during  the 
times  of  Charles  the  Seventh  and  Louis  the  Eleventh. 

De  Mably  will  always  apprize  you,  by  the  tone  and  nature 
of  his  observations,  what  are  the  transactions,  and  what  the 
periods  of  importance  ;  and  these  you  should  examine  through 
all  their  detail  in  some  of  the  great  French  historians.  I 
have  found  the  history  of  Velly  the  most  elaborate  and  com- 
plete. 

I  must  remind  you,  that  the  constitutional  history  of  France 
is  noticed  by  Robertson,  in  his  introduction  to  Charles  the 
Fifth,  and  his  text  is  accompanied  by  three  valuable  notes,  the 
thirty-eighth,  thirty-ninth,  and  fortieth. 

But  the  same  question  which  I  have  thus  recommended  to 
you,  with  respect  to  France  and  England,  an  inquiry  into  their 
constitutional  histories,  may  be  extended  to  the  other  king- 
doms of  Europe  ;  and  we  have  hitherto  said  nothing  of  Spain, 
a  country  which,  like  England,  might  have  obtained  a  free 
and  mixed  government,  as  the  elements  of  its  constitution  were 
originally  similar  (monarchy,  feudal  lords,  and  national  assem- 
blies), but  which,  like  France,  from  various  untoward  circum- 
stances, lost  its  liberties,  and  has  had  to  descend,  through 
different  stage's  of  degradation,  at  last  almost  to  extinction  and 
ruin. 

I  must  repeat  to  you,  before  we  advert  to  Spain,  that  it  is 
only  by  inquiries  of  this  sort  into  the  histories  of  other  coun- 
tries, that  you  can  learn  properly  to  understand  how  slowly  a 
good  government  can  be  formed  ;  by  what  attention  and  anx- 
iety it  can  be  alone  maintained  ;  what  are  the  exact  points  of 
difficulty  in  the  formation  of  a  good  government  ;  and  the 
manner  (often  the  singular  and  unexpected  manner)  in  which 
these  difficulties  are  evaded  or  modified,  or  overcome,  more 
particularly  in  your  own. 

But  to  allude,  as  we  have  proposed,  to  the  history  of  Spain. 
In  the  fifth  volume  of  Gibbon  may  be  found  an  account  of 
the  introduction  of  the  Moors  into  that  country,  of  their  set- 
tlement there,  and  of  the  magnificence  of  their  caliphs,  and  to 
him  I  refer.  An  estimate  is  also  given  of  the  science  and 
knowledge  of  this  remarkable  people  ;  and  at  first  we  might 
be  tempted  to  conclude,  that,  in  the  general  darkness  and  bar- 
barity of  Europe,  the  light  of  civilization  and  learning  was 


204  LECTURE  VIII. 

destined  to  issue  from  the  Mahometan  capital  of  Cordova. 
But  the  science  and  knowledge  of  these  Arabians,  when  more 
nearly  examined,  lose  much  of  their  importance  ;  and  the  na- 
ture of  their  government  was  little  fitted,  however  accompa- 
nied by  science  and  the  arts,  to  build  up,  either  in  Spain  or 
in  other  countries,  the  fabric  of  human  happiness. 

Unfortunately,  too,  it  happened  that  a  long  succession  of 
bloody  struggles  was  to  ensue  between  the  Christians  and 
the  Moors  ;  and  all  hope  that  the  progress  of  society  should 
be  exemplified  in  Spain,  became  on  that  account  extremely 
feeble. 

There  is  something  in  these  wars,  between  the  Christians 
and  the  Moors,  that  has  a  sound  of  heroism  and  romance, 
well  fitted  to  awaken  our  interest  and  curiosity.  But  I  know 
not  that  these  sentiments  can  now  be  gratified,  or  extended, 
beyond  the  poetry  and  the  legends  by  which  they  have  been 
inspired. 

The  great  historian  of  Spain  is  Mariana,  u  who  has  infused 
(says  Gibbon)  into  his  noble  work,  the  style  and  spirit  of  a 
Roman  classic.  After  the  twelfth  century,  his  knowledge 
and  judgment  may,  he  observes,  be  safely  trusted  ;  but  he 
adopts  and  adorns  the  most  absurd  of  the  national  legends, 
and  supplies  from  a  lively  fancy  the  chasms  of  historical 
evidence." 

Roderick  Ximenes,  not  the  statesman,  though  also  an  arch- 
bishop of  Toledo,  is  the  father  of  Spanish  history,  yet  he 
did  not  live  till  five  hundred  years  after  the  conquest  of  the 
Arabs  ;  and  the  earlier  accounts  are,  it  seems,  very  meagre. 
But  the  work  of  Mariana,  with  the  continuation  of  Miniana, 
consists  of  four  folio  volumes,  and  will  now  be  more  often 
mentioned  than  consulted,  and  consulted  than  read.  There  is 
an  English  translation  of  it. 

I  must,  therefore,  observe,  that  great  diligence  appears  to 
have  been  employed  on  his  portion  of  history  by  the  authors 
of  the  Modern  History  ;  and  the  Spanish  historians  Mariana, 
Ferraras,  Roderick,  and  others,  are  continually  referred  to. 
The  student  may,  therefore,  consider  the  subject  as  placed 
within  his  reach  by  the  detail  which  he  will  find  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  volumes  of  the  Modern  History.  But 
it  is  a  detail  which,  however  great  may  be  its  interest  in 


SPAIN.  205 

chivalry  and  romance,  he  will  never  read  ;  and  he  will  proba- 
bly cast  over  it  that  passing  glance  with  which  we  may 
consent  to  survey  such  sanguinary  scenes  in  the  history  of 
mankind. 

In  Mr.  Gibbon's  outlines,  published  in  the  second  volume  of 
his  Memoirs,  there  are  a  few  notices  of  this  part  of  the  Spanish 
history,  which  will  enable  the  student  to  hasten  through  the  nar- 
rative in  the  Modern  History  with  the  least  possible  expendi- 
ture of  his  time. 

In  the  eleventh  century,  the  Christian  princes,  who  had 
fallen  back  upon  the  most  northern  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
advanced  southward.  They  were  encouraged  by  the  intestine 
divisions  of  the  Mahometans,  who  had  now  for  a  few  centuries 
exhibited  their  superiority  in  war  and  their  magnificence  in 
peace. 

The  siege  of  Toledo,  and  the  exploits  of  the  Spanish 
general,  Don  Roderigo  Dias  de  Bivar,  form  the  next  objects 
of  attention.  Roderigo  is  the  Cid  whom  history,  and  still 
more  the  muse  of  Corneille,  have  consigned  to  immortality. 
There  has  been  a  history  of  the  Cid  lately  published  by  Mr. 
Southey. 

The  great  battle  of  Toloso,  from  which  the  Moors  never  re- 
covered, and  their  subsequent  stand  in  the  kingdom  of  Gre- 
nada, are  the  next  points  of  importance.  About  this  time  also 
flourished  the  king  Alphonso,  who  is  remembered  rather  for  his 
taste  and  knowledge  of  astronomy,  than  for  the  superiority  of 
his  talents  in  government. 

For  some  time  the  Mahometan  kingdom  of  Grenada,  and  the 
four  Christian  monarchies  of  Castile,  Aragon,  Navarre,  and 
Portugal,  were  distinguished  from  each  other,  each  retaining 
its  respective  laws  and  limits  ;  and  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
is,  the  union  of  the  crowns  of  Castile  and  Aragon  under  Fer- 
dinand and  Isabella,  and  the  defence,  capitulation,  and  expul- 
sion of  the  Moors. 

Both  the  Christians  and  Moors,  in  the  course  of  this  great 
contest,  had  similar  advantages  and  impediments  :  friends  and 
allies,  behind  them  ;  intestine  divisions  ;  personal  bravery, 
and  love  of  glory,  and  the  animation  of  religious  and  political 
rage.  But  the  north  of  Spain  was  more  fitted  than  the  south 
to  produce  active  and  hardy  warriors.  Among  the  Christians, 


206  LECTURE  VIII. 

the  warlike  ardor  of  chivalry  was  advancing  or  at  its  height  : 
on  the  contrary,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  followers  of  Mahomet 
had  now  spent  itself  in  conquest,  and  the  fiercer  passions  of 
their  nature  were  lost  in  the  blandishments  of  pleasure  ; 
riches  and  luxury  had  probably  abated  their  fierceness  with- 
out adding  proportionably  to  their  skill  in  the  science  of 
war  :  and,  finally,  the  Spaniards  were  fighting  for  a  country  of 
which  they  must  have  considered  themselves  as  the  rightful 
possessors. 

The  narrative  of  Gibbon  and  the  detail  of  the  authors  of  the 
modern  history  will  gradually  conduct  the  student  to  the  ob- 
servations of  Dr.  Robertson  in  his  introductory  volume  to  the 
History  of  Charles  the  Fifth.  From  the  researches  of  this  ex- 
cellent historian  he  will  find,  that,  notwithstanding  the  conquests 
of  the  Moors  and  the  long  struggles  which  had  followed,  a 
situation  of  things  obtained  similar  to  what  he  has  observed 
in  other  parts  of  Europe,  and  therefore  containing  some  prom- 
ise of  subsequent  prosperity  and  freedom.  The  Gothic  man- 
ners and  laws  still  survived  from  the  tolerance  of  the  Moor- 
ish conquerors  ;  the  provinces  of  Spain,  having  been  slowly 
wrested  from  the  Moors,  were  divided  among  military  leaders  ; 
and  the  feudal  lord  in  no  country  appeared  more  powerful  and 
independent. 

The  same  causes  which  gave  rise  to  the  cities  in  other  parts 
of  Europe  were  assisted  in  Spain  by  circumstances  peculiar 
to  itself.  These  are  well  explained  by  Robertson  ;  and  in  this 
manner  we  arrive  at  the  same  great  distinctions  of  policy,  a 
limited  monarch  ;  feudal  lords  ;  the  Cortes  or  national  assem- 
bly, and  of  that  assembly  the  towns  making  a  constituent  part. 
The  spirit  of  the  people  was  high,  and  the  love  of  liberty  great ; 
and  they,  who  have  a  pleasure  in  seeing  the  democratic  part  of 
a  mixed  government  strongly  predominant,  may  consider  the 
very  remarkable  institution  of  the  Justiza  or  the  supreme  judge 
of  Aragon.  They  may  see,  at  the  same  time,  the  high  pre- 
rogatives which  the  Arogonese  Cortes  possessed  ;  so  that  in 
this  manner  was  realized  all  that  could  well  be  proposed  in  the- 
ory by  those  who  are  disposed  to  rest  a  government  very  much 
on  a  popular  basis. 

The  justiza  was  in  reality  the  guardian  of  the  people,  and, 
when  necessary,  the  controller  of  the  prince  ;  and  every  pre- 


SPAIN.  207 

caution,  as  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  seems  to  have  been 
adopted  the  better  to  control  in  his  turn  the  justiza  himself, 
and  to  provide  against  the  powers  of  this  singular  representative 
of  the  general  interests  of  the  community. 

The  Aragonese  Cortes  themselves  were  also  as  proud  in 
principle,  and  as  strong  in  power,  as  could  be  wished  by  the 
most  popular  reasoner.  The  compact,  for  instance,  between 
the  king  and  his  barons  is  supposed  to  have  been  thus  ex- 
pressed :  "  We  who  are  each  of  us  as  good,  and  who  are  alto- 
gether more  powerful  than  you,  promise  obedience  to  your 
government,  if  you  maintain  our  rights  and  liberties  ;  if  not, 
not.'7  Finally,  it  must  be  observed,  that  the  attachment  of  the 
Aragonese  to  this  singular  constitution  of  government  is  said 
to  have  approached  to  superstitious  veneration,  and  to  have 
reconciled  them  to  their  consciousness  of  poverty,  and  to  the 
barrenness  of  their  country. 

It  were  to  be  wished  that  more  information  could  be  pro- 
cured with  respect  to  these  remarkable  institutions  and  their 
effects.  It  should  seem,  however,  that  the  obvious  difficulties 
occurred.  It  is  easy  to  dispose  of  power,  but  not  therefore 
easy  to  make  a  good  government,  not  therefore  to  render  power 
so  disposed,  either  salutary  or  even  harmless.  The  justiza 
might  be  made  the  supreme  judge  of  the  concerns  both  of  the 
king  and  of  the  nobles  ;  but  who  then  was  to  appoint  the  jus- 
tiza ?  Who  afterwards  to  censure  or  control  him  ?  Or  the 
nobles  might  be  supreme.  But  by  whom  then  were  the  nobles 
to  be  restrained  ?  And  how  was  it  to  be  expected,  that,  in 
either  case,  the  monarch  either  could  or  ought  to  be  con- 
tented and  at  rest  ?  What,  after  all,  seems  to  have  been  the 
result  ?  A  continued  struggle,  open  or  concealed. 

In  1264  the  nobles  insisted  that  the  king  should  not  nominate 
the  justiza  without  their  consent.  This  was,  in  fact,  to  assume 
the  whole  power  to  themselves  ;  for  he,  whose  consent  is  neces- 
sary to  an  appointment,  appoints. 

Before  this  time  the  justiza  had  been  nominated  by  the 
choice,  and  held  his  office  at  the  pleasure,  of  the  king  ;  but  this 
last  circumstance  was  to  make  the  justiza  not  a  little  useless, 
and  to  give  the  real  power  to  the  crown. 

The  power  of  the  king  was,  however,  to  be  corrected,  it 
seems,  by  the  prerogative  which  the  nobles  enjoyed,  of  what 


208  LECTURE  VIII. 

was  called  the  "union,"  or  of  confederating  formally  and 
legally  to  give  law  to  the  king. 

This  was,  however,  only  to  constitute  two  powers  which 
were  to  be  in  a  state  of  perpetual  collision  with  each  other. 

Afterwards  this  privilege  of  the  nobles  was  abolished  as  too 
dangerous  to  the  peace  of  society  ;  and  then  the  justiza  was 
continued  in  office  for  life.  But  this  was  to  render  HIM  the 
monarch,  in  the  apprehension  of  the  wearers  of  the  crown  ; 
and  therefore  attempts  were  perpetually  made  by  the  kings  to 
remove  such  justizas  as  were  obnoxious  to  them. 

Subsequently,  in  1442,  the  Cortes  ordained  that  the  justiza 
should  not  be  removed  but  at  their  pleasure. 

Again.  So  late  as  1461  contrivances  were  adopted  to  form 
a  tribunal  before  whom  the  justiza  was  to  appear  and  answer 
for  his  conduct. 

But  all  these  expedients,  and  all  expedients  of  the  kind, 
are  only  the  efforts  of  men  who  are  struggling  with  a  diffi- 
culty which  it  is  impossible  entirely  to  remove.  Events  such 
as  we  have  thus  briefly  collected  from  Robertson  (and  the 
history  itself  would  no  doubt  furnish  many  more  if  it  had 
been  philosophically  written  by  the  Spanish  historians)  par- 
take in  fact  of  the  nature  of  revolutions,  —  the  varying  triumphs 
of  contending  principles  of  government ;  contests  which,  how- 
ever natural  they  may  be  in  any  elementary  state  of  society,  or 
however  tolerable  among  those  who  are  accustomed  to  violence 
and  bloodshed,  are  the  great  evils  to  be  avoided  if  men  are  to 
be  rendered  happy  by  the  institutions  of  government,  or  are 
supposed  to  exist  in  any  state  of  civilization  and  improvement. 
To  throw  the  power  decidedly  into  the  hands  of  one  great  magis- 
trate, or  of  one  great  body  of  nobles,  or  of  one  great  assembly 
of  the  people,  is  to  cut  the  knot,  not  to  loose  it ;  it  is  to  face 
and  despise  all  the  evils  which  are  most  deserving  of  our  alarm 
and  avoidance. 

I  must  observe,  that  evils  and  difficulties  like  these  show 
the  value  of  any  constitution  already  established,  where  these 
elementary  principles  of  rivalship  are  tolerably  well  improved, 
and  the  unspeakable  value  of  any  like  our  own,  where  they  are 
on  the  whole  well  composed. 

Among   the   Castilians,   from   what  little  can  now  be  col- 


SPAIN.  209 

lected  of  their  laws  and  constitution,  the  interests  of  mankind 
had  a  better  prospect.  The  Cortes  consisted  of  three  estates, 
and  possessed  powers  analogous  to  those  of  our  parliaments 
in  England.  But  everywhere  in  Spain,  as  in  other  parts  of 
Europe  (with  the  exception  of  England),  the  powers  of  the 
crown  were  too  limited  ;  the  barons  enjoyed  prerogatives  in- 
consistent with  the  order,  peace,  and  prosperity  of  the  com- 
munity. These  it  was  impossible  for  the  monarchs  to  endure. 
A  constant  struggle,  secret  or  avowed,  was  the  consequence  ; 
and  the  question  here,  as  elsewhere,  was  only,  —  What  was 
to  be  the  result  ?  How  was  the  power  to  be  hereafter  shared  ? 
Were  the  people,  or  the  monarchs,  or  the  nobles,  to  predomi- 
nate, and  to  what  extent  ? 

Inquiries  of  this  nature  must  be  followed  up  through  the 
pages  of  Robertson,  and  Watson  in  his  History  of  Philip  the 
Second,  through  the  reigns  of  Ferdinand,  Charles  the  Fifth, 
and  Philip  the  Second.  I  cannot  here  enter  into  such  inqui- 
ries. I  have  pointed  them  out  to  you. 

It  is  many  years  since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  and  there  has 
lately  appeared  a  work  by  Mrs.  Calcott,  a  popular  History  of 
Spain,  in  two  octavo  volumes.  It  may  be  recommended  to 
the  student,  for  the  author  has  made  every  thing  of  the  sub- 
ject that  was  possible.  But  the  truth  is,  that  the  subject  is 
impracticable.  There  are  so  many  Moorish  dynasties  and 
Christian  dynasties,  and  the  whole  is  such  an  intermingled 
scene  of  eternal  confusion  and  bloodshed  ;  the  heroes  and 
great  personages  concerned  so  constantly  come  like  shadows 
and  so  depart  ;  that  the  student  can  scarcely  be  required  to 
endeavour  to  remember  the  events  and  the  characters  that  he 
reads  of,  for  any  such  attempt  would  be  impossible.  He 
must  turn  over  the  pages  one  after  another  ;  he  will  observe 
many  interesting  scenes  of  a  dramatic  nature,  but  he  must 
look  more  attentively  at  those  subjects  which,  from  what  he 
has  read  in  Gibbon,  and  heard  on  different  occasions,  he  may 
be  aware,  deserve  consideration.  Every  thing  is  done  by 
Mrs.  Calcott  that  can  be  done  by  good  sense  and  good  prin- 
ciples of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  by  commendable  dili- 
gence in  the  collection  and  display  of  the  materials  which 
her  subject  supplied  ;  and  the  student  will  see  the  main  points 
presented  to  his  view  and  reasonable  observations  made,  and 

VOL.   i.  27 


210  LECTURE  VIII. 

on  the  whole  feel  his  mind  left  in  a  state  of  sufficient  repose 
and  satisfaction  with  respect  to  this  portion  of  his  course  of 
historical  reading.  But  it  is  impossible  that  his  original  ex- 
pectations from  this  part  of  history  can  be  gratified,  more  par- 
ticularly if  he  is  a  person  of  poetical  temperament,  and  has 
got  his  imagination  excited  by  all  the  enchanting  dreams  that, 
by  means  of  ballads,  romances,  histories,  and  dramas,  are  for 
ever  associated  with  this  renowned  land  of  magnificence,  chiv- 
alry, and  love. 

Spain  has  now  been  added  to  our  former  enumeration  of 
Italy  and  Germany,  of  France  and  England.  To  what  coun- 
try shall  we  next  advert  ?  We  cannot  but  feel  a  melancholy 
interest  in  the  ruins  of  ancient  greatness,  in  Constantinople 
and  in  the  empire  of  the  east  :  it  is  natural,  it  is  fit,  that  we 
should  cast  our  eyes  on  this  celebrated  city  :  and  if  we  have 
recourse  to  the  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall,  we  shall  find 
that  the  genius  of  the  historian  survives,  while  the  majesty 
of  his  subject  has  expired.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  turn  to 
Greece  while  we  are  inquiring  after  the  hopes  or  the  interests 
of  the  human  race.  The  eastern  empire  is  at  this  period 
sinking  deeper  into  decline  with  each  succeeding  age.  With- 
out, are  new  barbarians  of  a  strange  aspect  and  hostile  religion, 
pressing  forward  to  accomplish  its  destruction  ;  within,  are 
enemies  still  more  formidable,  slavery,  dissension,  and  licen- 
tiousness ;  and  no  benefit  can  be  expected  to  be  derived  to 
mankind  from  an  empire,  a  nation,  a  city,  thus  gradually  re- 
duced, enfeebled,  and  destroyed  ;  capable  of  no  generous 
effort  or  permanent  defence,  and  every  moment  descending  to 
a  final  and  merited  extinction. 

From  Constantinople,  the  Empire  of  the  East,  we  may  turn 
once  more  to  Rome,  so  long  the  capital  of  the  Empire  of  the 
West.  We  may  turn  to  the  sixty-ninth  and  seventieth  chap- 
ters of  Gibbon  ;  these  are  very  accessible,  and  appear  to  me 
sufficient.  In  these  chapters  the  historian  casts  a  last  look  on 
the  original  object  of  his  labors,  the  Roman  city,  declined 
and  fallen  from  her  height,  and  no  longer  mistress  of  the 
world  ;  yet  interesting  from  the  monuments  which  she  still  re- 
tained of  heroism  and  genius,  and  from  the  melancholy  con- 
trast of  present  degradation  with  ancient  glory  and  renown. 

In  these  chapters  he  reviews  the  state  and  revolutions  of 
Rome  till  she  finally  acquiesced  in  the  absolute  power  of  the 


ITALY.  211 

popes  ;  and  from  these  pages  we  are  enabled  to  collect  very 
sufficient  information  on  those  points  which  are  more  immedi- 
ately deserving  of  our  attention. 

But  since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  the  work  of  Mr.  Sismondi, 
his  History  of  the  Italian  Republics,  has  appeared,  and  the 
work  which  I  have  so  often  alluded  to  of  Mr.  Hallam. 

Along  with  the  chapters  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  therefore,  I  must 
now  propose  to  you  the  two  chapters  of  Mr.  Hallam  on  Italy, 
which  should  be  diligently  read.  In  his  note,  which  you  will 
find  very  valuable,  you  will  see  him  speak  of  the  work  of  Sis- 
mondi, and  in  the  following  terms  :  — 

"  The  publication  of  Mr.  Sismondi's  History  has  thrown  a 
blaze  of  light  around  the  most  interesting  (at  least  in  many 
respects)  of  European  countries  (Italy)  during  the  middle 
ages.  I  am  happy  to  bear  witness,  so  far  as  my  own  studies 
have  enabled  me,  to  the  learning  and  diligence  of  this  writer  : 
qualities  which  the  world  is  sometimes  apt  not  to  suppose, 
where  they  perceive  so  much  eloquence  and  philosophy." 

Mr.  Hallam  then  goes  on  to  state  why  he  considers  Sis- 
mondi as  having  almost  superseded  the  Annals  of  Muratori, 
from  the  twelfth  century  at  least,  and  only  thinks  it  proper 
to  observe,  in  the  way  of  criticism,  that  from  details  too  re- 
dundant, and  sometimes  from  unnecessary  reflections,  Mr. 
Sismondi  has  run  into  a  prolixity,  which  will  probably  intimi- 
date the  languid  students  of  our  age.  This,  he  says,  "  is  the 
more  to  be  regretted,  as  the  history  is  fitted  to  communicate  to 
the  reader's  bosom  some  sparks  of  the  dignified  philosophy, 
the  same  love  for  truth  and  virtue,  which  lives  along  its  elo- 
quent pages." 

This  is  very  high  praise  from  Mr.  Hallam,  no  very  ready 
or  profuse  panegyrist  at  any  time  ;  and  my  hearer  must  there- 
fore turn  to  the  volumes  that  have  won  such  important  appro- 
bation. 

I  shall  not  be  surprised,  however,  if  he  should  find  himself, 
after  a  sight  and  trial  of  these  fifteen  volumes,  ready  to  sink  into 
the  class  of  the  languid  students  of  the  age  ;  and  I  sincerely 
wish  I  could  provide  a  little  against  a  circumstance  which,  in 
the  present  state  of  literature  and  of  the  world,  I  do  not  con- 
sider altogether  as  unnatural. 

You  will  observe,  then,  that  on  the  fall  of  the  western  em- 


212  LECTURE  VIII. 

pire,  during  the  first  six  ages,  the  barbarians  and  degenerate 
Italians  were  mixed  together,  and  from  this  sort  of  union  was 
to  arise  a  new  nation  to  succeed  to  the  Romans. 

Different  republics  appeared  in  different  parts  of  Italy.  To 
these  we  are  not  a  little  indebted  for  the  preservation  of  the 
treasures  of  antiquity,  and,  as  Sismondi  contends,  it  was  in 
these  republics  that  were  laid  the  foundations  of  all  the  subse- 
quent glory  and  intellectual  eminence  of  Europe.  You  see, 
then,  at  once  the  subject  and  the  interest  of  it. 

In  brief,  Italy  before  the  twelfth  century  was  subjected  to 
the  Franks,  then  to  the  Germans,  and  then  came  four  centuries 
of  grandeur  and  glory  ;  during  which  four  centuries,  from  1100 
to  1530,  Italy  gave  instruction  to  the  rest  of  Europe  in  every 
art,  science,  and  species  of  knowledge.  But,  in  1530,  Italy 
was  overpowered  by  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  total  insignificance 
has  been  the  result.  That  is,  in  the  course  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, Italy  acquired  its  liberties,  enjoyed  them  during  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth,  and  lost  them  soon  after  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth. 

The  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  have  since  been 
centuries  of  slavery,  indolence,  effeminacy,  oblivion. 

On  the  whole,  as  far  as  the  subject  of  republics  is  con- 
cerned, you  will  find  your  general  conclusions,  drawn  from  the 
example  of  these  Italian  republics,  much  what  you  would  have 
expected  them  to  be  from  your  classical  reading,  from  your 
perusal  of  the  annals  of  the  Grecian  republics  and  of  Rome  : 
that  they  reward  and  therefore  awaken  the  faculties  of  the 
human  mind  and  the  energies  of  the  human  character ;  but  that 
storms,  and  dissensions,  and  revolutions  are  the  necessary  result. 
This  is  confessed  by  Sismondi  himself.  The  fearful  calami- 
ties, the  dreadful  price  that  is  paid  for  the  production  of  men 
of  great  talents  !  By  such  men,  it  may  be  added,  such  forms 
of  government  are  naturally  favored,  as  affording  them  a  the- 
atre on  which  such  talents  may  be  displayed  ;  but  whether  the 
general  happiness  is  thus  best  consulted,  is  quite  another 
question. 

Such  then  is  the  subject  of  Sismondi's  history,  —  the  history 
of  these  republics  between  the  fall  of  the  Romans,  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  power  of  Charles  the  Fifth.  The  age  of  merit 
unknown,  — for  the  history  is  unknown,  — because  it  has  never 


ITALY.  213 

been  written  in  any  general  or  summary  way,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  read  the  particular  details  of  it. 

Now  I  fear  this  impossibility  neither  is,  or  ever  can  be, 
escaped.  Mr.  Sismondi  has  himself  attempted  it.  He  has 
made  a  small  volume,  published  by  Lardner,  and  it  is  a  failure. 
I  must  venture  to  say,  that  even  now,  notwithstanding  Mr. 
Sismondi's  eloquence  and  skill,  his  love  of  liberty,  and  his 
learning,  it  is  very  well  for  his  work,  that  there  is  a  good 
index  everywhere  accompanying  the  original  volumes  ;  and  I 
would  advise  my  hearers,  and  more  particularly  the  languid 
students,  to  read  and  consider  well  the  two  chapters  of  Hal- 
lam,  and  then  turn  to  Sismondi,  making  full  use  of  his  index, 
which  the  prior  perusal  of  Hallam  will  enable  him  to  do. 

I  must  be  content  in  this  unworthy  manner  to  dismiss  this 
subject  of  Italy,  and  the  work  of  Sismondi  ;  but  originally  I 
drew  up  many  pages  on  the  subject  of  both,  particularly  of  the 
latter  :  they,  however,  began  to  assume  the  bulk  and  appear- 
ance of  a  separate  lecture  ;  and  I  now  think  it  best  to  leave 
the  student,  as  I  have  done,  to  his  own  exertions. 

Certainly  every  thing  regarding  Italy,  and  the  character  of 
the  Italians,  is  most  interesting.  They  appear  to  me,  even  as 
we  now  see  them,  to  have  intelligence  and  talents,  equal  to 
any  study ;  a  versatility,  that  would  fit  them  at  once  for  music 
and  painting,  for  politics  and  war  ;  an  imagination,  which  en- 
ables them  still  to  retain  the  empire  of  the  fine  arts  ;  gentle- 
ness of  manners,  in  other  countries  found  only  in  the  upper 
ranks  of  society  ;  a  sobriety,  which  keeps  them  safe  from  any 
vulgar  excess  ;  and  on  the  whole,  such  gifts  and  qualities  as 
would  insure  great  national  superiority  and  individual  excel- 
lence, if  proper  opportunities  could  but  be  afforded  them,  — 
opportunities  which  never  were,  or  could  be  afforded  them, 
from  the  division  of  their  country  into  republics,  or  separate 
governments,  and  the  impossibility  of  rescuing  them  from 
their  inherited  antipathies  and  rivalships. 

At  the  peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle,  in  1748,  Italy  might  in- 
deed be  left  to  repose,  but  to  repose  on  the  supposition  of 
existing  without  freedom  and  national  spirit.  No  provision 
was  made  for  her  liberties  and  independence. 

Italy   is,   therefore,   now  only  a   vast  museum,   where  the 


214  LECTURE  VIII. 

monuments  of  the  genius  of  the  dead  are  presented  to  the 
admiration  of  the  living.  No  one  asks  what  the  princes  and 
people  of  Italy  are  doing  ;  an  iron  sceptre  is  extended  over 
them.  The  intelligent  Italian  feels  that  he  has  no  country, 
and  mingles  his  sighs  and  regrets,  his  indignation  and  his 
anguish,  with  the  sublime  lamentations  of  the  poet  of  Eng- 
land. 

We  must  now  turn  to  Germany.  I  must  leave  Pfeffel  to 
conduct  you  from  the  succession  of  Rodolph,  to  the  opening 
of  the  history  of  Robertson.  His  work  may  be  read  with 
more  or  less  attention,  according  to  the  varying  importance  of 
the  subject  matter.  But  the  first  observation  that  occurs  is, 
that  from  this  era  the  history  of  Germany  assumes  a  double 
aspect,  and  that  our  attention  must  be  directed,  not  only  to 
the  empire  itself,  but  to  the  rise,  growth,  and  subsequent  pre- 
dominance of  the  House  of  Austria.  A  work  has  lately  been 
published,  executed  with  every  appearance  of  diligence  and 
precision,  by  Mr.  Coxe  (Coxe's  History  of  Austria),  and 
furnishing  the  English  reader  with  a  complete  account  of  the 
political  history  of  that  celebrated  family.  By  his  labors,  and 
those  of  Pfeffel  and  Robertson,  we  may  consider  ourselves 
as  furnished  with  information,  which  we  must  otherwise  have 
extracted  with  great  pain  and  labor,  if  at  all,  from  those  docu- 
ments and  historians  in  different  languages,  to  which  they 
refer.  These  writers  will  be  found  to  illustrate  each  other 
and  may  be  read  together,  —  Pfeffel,  Robertson,  and  Coxe. 

From  several  details  and  particulars  that  belong  to  this 
portion  of  history,  and  which  may  be  perused,  I  conceive, 
somewhat  slightly,  there  are  some  which  should  be  considered 
more  attentively  :  the  gradual  settlement  of  the  constitution 
of  tthe  empire,  as  it  is  noted  by  Pfeffel  and  more  especially  the 
Golden  Bull  of  Charles  the  Fourth.  This  Golden  Bull  was 
the  first  among  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  empire,  and  was 
published  by  the  emperor,  it  is  to  be  observed,  with  the  con- 
sent and  concurrence  of  the  electors,  princes,  counts,  nobility, 
and  towns  imperial. 

But  by  this  famous  bull,  as  by  all  the  prior  regulations  of 
the  Germanic  constitution,  the  emperor  was  still  left  the 
elective,  the  limited,  and  almost  the  inefficient  head  of  an 


GERMANY.  215 

aristocracy  of  princes  ;  each  of  whom  seems  to  have  remained 
the  real  monarch  in  his  own  dominions  ;  and  the  vast  strength 
and  resources  of  Germany,  dissipated  and  divided  among  a 
variety  of  interests,  could  at  no  time,  even  by  the  most  able 
princes  of  the  House  of  Austria,  be  combined  and  wielded 
against  the  enemies  of  the  empire  with  their  proper  and  natural 
effect. 

Apparently,  indeed,  and  on  great  public  occasions,  the  maj- 
esty of  the  emperor  was  sufficiently  preserved  and  displayed. 
The  princes  and  potentates  of  Germany  officiated  as  his  do- 
mestics ;  the  count-palatine  of  the  Rhine,  as  his  steward, 
placed  the  dishes  on  his  table  ;  the  margrave  of  Brandenburg, 
as  his  chamberlain,  brought  the  golden  ewer  and  bason  to  wash  ; 
the  king  of  Bohemia,  as  his  cup-bearer,  presented  the  wine  at 
his  repast ;  and  each  elector  had  his  appropriate  duty  of  ap- 
parent servility  and  homage. 

Such  are  the  whimsical  and  contradictory  scenes  of  arro- 
gance and  debasement,  of  ostentation  and  meanness,  of  grave 
folly  and  elaborate  inanity,  which  are  produced  among  man- 
kind, when  in  a  state  of  civilized  society,  by  the  intermingled 
operation  of  the  various  passions  of  our  nature.  History  is  full 
of  them  ;  and  private  life,  as  well  as  public,  presents  the  same 
motley  exhibition  of  compliments  paid,  by  which  no  one  is 
to  be  flattered  ;  trouble  undertaken,  by  which  no  one  is  to  be 
benefited  ;  and  artifices  practised,  by  which  no  one  is  to  be 
deceived. 

But  we  now  approach  one  of  the  most  interesting  portions 
of  history,  and  one  that  is  connected  with  Germany,  and  more 
particularly  the  House  of  Austria,  —  The  formation  of  the 
Helvetic  Confederacy,  the  growth  and  establishment  of  the  in- 
dependence and  political  consequence  of  Switzerland. 

The  historians  you  are  to  read  are  Planta,  and  Coxe  in  his 
House  of  Austria.  There  is  a  history  by  Naylor,  who  is  more 
ardent  than  either  in  his  love  of  liberty,  but  seems  less  calm, 
and  less  likely  to  attract  the  confidence  of  his  reader. 

Switzerland  is  a  name  associated  with  the  noblest  feelings 
of  our  nature,  and  we  turn  with  interest  to  survey  the  rise 
and  progress  of  countries  which  we  have  never  been  accus- 
tomed to  mention,  but  with  sentiments  of  respect.  In  the 
history  of  the  world,  it  has  been  the  distinction  of  three 


216  LECTURE  VIII. 

nations  only,  to  be  characterized  by  their  virtue  and  their 
patriotism,  —  the  early  Romans,  the  Spartans,  and  the  Swiss. 
We  speak  of  the  splendor  of  the  Persians,  of  the  genius  of 
the  Athenians  ;  but  we  speak  of  the  hardy  discipline  and  the 
inflexible  virtue  of  Sparta,  and  of  ancient  republican  Rome  ; 
"  the  unconquerable  mind,  and  freedom's  holy  flame."  So, 
in  modern  times,  we  speak  of  the  treasures  of  Peru,  of  the 
luxuries  of  India,  of  the  commerce  of  Venice  or  of  Holland, 
and  of  the  arts  of  France  ;  but  it  is  to  Switzerland  that  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  turn,  when,  as  philanthropists  or  mor- 
alists, we  sought  among  mankind  the  unbought  charms  of  native 
innocence,  and  the  sublime  simplicity  of  severe  and  contented 
virtue. 

More  minute  examination  might  possibly  compel  us  to 
abate  something  of  the  admiration  which  we  have  paid  at  a 
distance  ;  yet  our  admiration  must  be  ever  due  to  the  singular 
people  of  Switzerland  ;  and  it  must  always  remain  a  panegyric 
of  the  highest  kind,  to  owe  renown  to  merit  alone  ;  to  have 
earned  their  independence  by  valor,  and  to  have  maintained 
their  prosperity  by  virtue  ;  to  be  quoted  as  examples  of  those 
qualities,  by  which  men  may  be  so  ennobled,  that  they  are 
respected,  even  amid  their  comparative  poverty  and  rudeness  ; 
to  be  described  as  heroes  who,  though  too  few  to  be  feared 
by  the  weak,  were  too  brave  to  be  insulted  by  the  strong. 
The  student,  while  he  reads  the  history  of  Switzerland, 
finds  himself,  on  a  sudden,  restored  to  his  earliest  emotions 
of  virtuous  sympathy,  and  he  will  almost  believe  himself  to  be 
once  more  surrounded  by  the  objects  of  his  classical  enthu- 
siasm ;  the  avengers  of  Lucretia,  and  the  heroes  of  Ther- 
mopylae. Insolence  and  brutality  he  will  see  once  more 
resisted  by  the  manly  feelings  of  indignant  nature.  A  few 
patriots  meeting  at  midnight,  and  attesting  the  justness  of  their 
cause  to  the  Almighty  disposer  of  events,  the  God  of  equity 
and  mercy,  the  protector  of  the  helpless  :  calm  and  united, 
proceeding  to  the  delivery  of  their  country  ;  overpowering, 
dismissing,  and  expelling  their  unworthy  rulers,  the  agents 
and  representatives  of  the  House  of  Austria,  without  outrage 
and  without  bloodshed  :  retaining  all  the  serene  forbearance 
of  the  most  elevated  reason,  amid  the  energies  and  the  fury  of 
vindictive  right  ;  and  magnanimously  reserving  the  vengeance 


SWITZERLAND.  217 

of  their  arms  for  those  of  their  rulers  who  should  dare  to  ap- 
proach them  in  the  field,  with  the  instruments  of  war,  and  the 
bloody  menaces  of  injustice  and  oppression. 

Such  a  trial  indeed  awaited  them  ;  but  these  inimitable 
peasants,  these  heroes  of  a  few  valleys,  were  not  to  be  dis- 
mayed. They  united  and  confirmed  their  union  by  an  oath  ; 
and  if  their  enemy,  as  he  declared,  was  determined  to  trample 
the  audacious  rustics  under  his  feet,  they  would  unawed  (they 
said)  await  his  coming,  and  rely  en  the  protection  of  the  Al- 
mighty. Their  enemy  came  ;  and  he  came  according  to  his 
language,  in  his  council  of  war,  to  take  some  by  surprise  ;  to 
defeat  others  ;  to  seize  on  many  ;  to  surround  them  all,  and  thus 
infallibly  to  extirpate  the  whole  nation.  Three  separate  attacks 
were  prepared,  and  the  Duke  Leopold  himself  conducted  the 
main  army  ;  but  he  was  met  at  the  straits  of  Morgarten  by  this 
band  of  brothers.  Like  one  of  the  avalances  of  their  moun- 
tains, they  descended  upon  his  host,  and  they  beat  back  into 
confusion,  defeat,  and  destruction,  himself,  his  knights,  and  his 
companions  ;  the  disdainful  chivalry,  who  had  little  considered 
the  formidable  nature  of  men,  who  could  bear  to  die,  but  not 
to  be  subdued  ;  men,  whom  nature  herself  seemed  to  have 
thrown  her  arms  around,  to  protect  them  from  the  invader,  by 
encompassing  them  with  her  inaccessible  mountains,  her  tre- 
mendous precipices,  and  all  her  stupendous  masses  of  eternal 
winter. 

The  Three  Forest  Cantons,  five  and  twenty  years  after  the 
assertion  of  their  own  independence,  admitted  to  their  union 
a  fourth  canton  ;  eighteen  years  after,  a  fifth  ;  and  soon  a  sixth, 
seventh,  and  an  eighth. 

These  eight  ancient  cantons,  whose  union  was  thus  grad- 
ually formed  and  perfected  in  the  course  of  half  a  century  from 
1307,  were  afterwards  joined  by  five  other  cantons  ;  and  the 
Helvetic  confederacy  was  thus,  in  the  course  of  two  centuries, 
finally  augmented  to  an  union  of  thirteen. 

But  many  were  the  difficulties  and  dangers  through  which 
the  cantons  had  to  struggle  for  their  independence,  and  the 
strength  of  the  oppressor  was  more  than  once  collected  to 
overwhelm,  in  the  earlier  periods  of  its  existence,  this  virtuous 
confederacy.  Seventy-one  years  after  the  defeat  at  Morgarten 

VOL.   i.  28 


218  LECTURE  VIII. 

another  Duke  of  Austria,  a  second  Leopold,  with  a  second 
host  of  lords  and  knights,  and  their  retainers,  experienced  once 
more  a  defeat  near  the  walls  of  Sempach  ;  but  the  battle  was 
long  suspended  :  these  Austrian  knights  were  unwieldly  indeed 
from  their  armour,  but  they  were  thereby  inaccessible  to  the 
weapons  of  the  Swiss  ;  and  as  they,  too,  were  brave,  and  de- 
served a  better  cause,  they  were  not  to  be  broken. 

"  I  will  open  a  passage,"  said  the  heroic  Arnold,  a  knight 
of  Underwalden  :  "provide  for  my  wife  and  children,  dear 
countrymen  and  confederates,  honor  my  race."  At  these 
words  he  threw  himself  upon  the  Austrian  pikes,  buried  them 
in  his  bosom,  bore  them  to  the  ground  with  his  own  ponderous 
mass,  and  his  companions  rushed  over  his  expiring  body  into 
the  ranks  of  the  enemy  ;  a  breach  was  made  in  this  wall  of 
mailed  warriors,  and  the  host  was  carried  by  assault. 

Such  were  long  the  patriots  of  Switzerland  ;  such  they  con- 
tinued to  the  last.  They  received  privileges  and  assistance 
from  the  empire,  while  the  empire  was  jealous  of  the  House 
of  Austria.  The  paucity  of  their  numbers  was  compensated 
by  the  advantages  of  their  Alpine  country.  Their  confedera- 
cies were  artless  and  sincere  ;  their  lives  rural  and  hardy  ;  their 
manners  simple  and  virtuous  ;  eternally  reminded  of  the  neces- 
sity of  a  common  interest,  every  peasant  was  a  patriot,  and 
every  patriot  a  hero.  Human  prosperity  must  be  always  frail, 
human  virtue  imperfect ;  yet  can  we  long  pursue  their  history, 
though  with  some  anxiety  and  occasional  pain,  on  the  whole, 
with  a  triumph  of  virtuous  pleasure. 

The  most  disagreeable  characteristic  of  the  people  of  Swit- 
zerland is  their  constant  appearance  as  mercenaries  in  the 
armies  of  foreign  countries. 

In  excuse  of  the  Swiss,  from  the  natural  reproaches  of  the 
reasoners  and  moralists  of  surrounding  nations,  it  may  be 
observed,  that  in  a  poor  country  emigration  is  the  natural 
resource  of  every  man,  whose  activity  and  talents  are  above 
the  ordinary  level ;  that  the  profession  of  arms  was  the  obvious 
choice  of  those  who  could  pretend  to  no  superiority  but  in  the 
qualities  that  constitute  the  military  character. 

That,  with  respect  to  the  Swiss  magistracies,  they  could 
have  no  right  to  prevent  their  youth  from  endeavouring  to 
better  their  condition  ;  and  that,  while  part  of  the  population 


SWITZERLAND.  219 

was  employed  in  the  service  of  the  different  monarchies  of 
Europe,  a  part  which  could  always  be  recalled  on  any  urgent 
occasion,  Switzerland  supported,  in  fact,  at  the  expense  of 
those  monarchies,  not  at  its  own,  the  disciplined  troops,  which 
were  necessary  to  its  security,  and  might  otherwise  have  been 
dangerous  to  its  liberties.  It  may  be  added,  that  their  fellow- 
citizens,  who  remained  at  home,  were  thus  saved  from  all  the 
vices  and  calamities  which  result  from  the  redundant  popula- 
tion of  every  bounded  community. 

No  great  legislator  ever  appeared  in  Switzerland.  The 
speculatist  will  find  no  peculiar  symmetry  and  grace  in  their 
systems,  and  may  learn  not  to  be  too  exclusive  in  his  theories. 
Times  and  circumstances  taught  their  own  lessons  ;  civil  and 
religious  establishments  were  imperfectly  produced,  roughly 
moulded,  and  slowly  improved  ;  and  whatever  might  be  their 
other  merits,  they  were  perfectly  adequate  to  dispense  the 
blessings  of  government  and  religion  to  a  brave  and  artless 
people.  The  great  difficulty  with  the  inhabitants  of  Switzer- 
land was  at  all  times,  no  doubt,  to  judge  how  far  they  were  to 
mix,  on  the  principles  of  their  own  security,  with  the  politics 
of  their  neighbours. 

A  second  difficulty,  to  keep  the  states  of  their  confederacy 
from  the  influence  of  foreign  intrigue  and  private  jealousy. 
A  third,  to  make  local  and  particular  rights  of  property  and 
prescription  conform  to  the  interests  of  the  whole.  And 
finally,  to  preserve  themselves  simple  and  virtuous.  In  a 
word,  publicly  and  privately  "to  do  justice,  and  to  love  mer- 
cy ;  "  and  again,  "  to  keep  themselves  unspotted  from  the 
world."  This  was  indeed  a  task  which,  perfectly  to  execute, 
was  beyond  the  compass  of  human  virtue.  But  with  all  their 
frailties  and  mistakes,  their  faults  and  follies,  they  existed  for 
nearly  five  hundred  years  in  a  state  of  great  comparative  inde- 
pendence and  honor,  security,  and  happiness  :  and  they  only 
perished  amid  the  ruthless  and  unprincipled  invasions  of  revo- 
lutionary France,  and  the  general  ruin  of  Europe. 

I  must,  in  my  next  lecture,  turn  to  the  great  event  of  mod- 
ern history,  the  Reformation  ;  but,  before  I  do  so,  I  must 
again  remind  my  hearer,  that,  since  I  wrote  the  lectures  I  have 
just  delivered,  several  works  have  appeared,  which  he  must 
consider  with  the  greatest  attention,  particularly  the  work  of 


220  LECTURE  VIII. 

Mr.  Hallarn  on  the  Middle  Ages.  All  the  subjects  that  have 
been  glanced  at  in  these  earlier  lectures  are  there  thoroughly 
considered  by  this  author  with  all  the  patience  of  an  anti- 
quary, and  the  spirit  and  sagacity  of  a  philosopher.  The 
French  history  ;  the  feudal  system  ;  the  history  of  Italy  ;  the 
history  of  Spain  ;  the  history  of  Germany  ;  of  the  Greeks  and 
Saracens  ;  the  history  of  ecclesiastical  power  ;  the  constitu- 
tional history  of  England  ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Anglo- 
Norman  ;  afterwards  to  the  end  of  the  civil  wars  between  the 
Roses,  with  a  concluding  dissertation  on  the  state  of  society 
during  the  middle  ages.  I  should  have  been  saved  many  a 
moment  of  fatigue,  some  almost  of  despair,  if  these  volumes 
had  appeared  before  I  began  my  lectures. 

In  like  manner  I  have  since  read,  and  should  have  been 
most  happy  to  have  read  before,  the  first  volume  of  the  His- 
tory of  England  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  The  volume, 
though  it  may  not  be  what  the  common  reader  may  have 
expected,  is  totally  invaluable  to  those  who  have  read  and 
thought  on  the  subject  before,  and  who  therefore  can  duly 
estimate  the  value  of  the  comprehensive  estimates  of  an  en- 
lightened and  superior  understanding.  The  same,  I  doubt 
not,  will  be  the  character  of  the  volumes  that  are  to  follow. 

I  have  since,  too,  looked  over  the  three  volumes  of  the 
History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  by  Mr.  Turner.  I  do  not  think 
it  necessary  for  the  student  to  read  every  part  with  equal 
attention,  or  some  parts  with  any  ;  but  there  is  good  informa- 
tion to  be  found  in  the  book,  such  as  he  cannot  well  procure 
for  himself,  and  may  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Turner  for  offering 
him,  so  completely  and  so  agreeably.  What  can  be  now 
known  of  Alfred,  more  particularly  of  the  sea  kings  and  sea 
banditti  of  the  north  ;  of  the  laws,  languages,  and  manners  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  so  connected  with  our  own  ;  their  religion 
and  their  superstitions  ;  the  constitution  of  their  government, 
their  kings  ;  their  wittenagemote  ;  their  offices  ;  their  aristoc- 
racy and  population  ;  their  poetry,  literature,  and  arts.  These 
are  all  subjects  very  interesting,  and  can  only  be  now  exhib- 
ited to  a  student  by  an  antiquary,  whose  merits  he  may  not 
be  disposed  to  emulate,  and  should  therefore  gratefully  ac- 
knowledge. 

I  have  also  looked  at  the  first  volume  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 


SWITZERLAND.  221 

History  by  Palgrave,  which,  though  interspersed  with  some 
trivial  remarks,  may  be  read  with  entertainment  and  advantage. 
The  second  volume  on  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  English 
constitution  will  probably  be  well  worthy  attention,  coming,  as 
it  does,  from  so  celebrated  an  antiquary. 

For  the  history  of  Switzerland  I  have  referred  to  Planta  ; 
but  there  has  been  lately  published  a  work  by  Mr.  Naylor. 

Mr.  Naylor  writes  with  a  much  more  lively  sensibility  to  the 
value  of  popular  privileges  ;  but  in  his  work  I  have  been  on  the 
whole  disappointed. 

His  preface  is  unsatisfactory  ;  he  gives  no  reasons  for  writing 
a  new  history  of  the  Helvetic  confederacy,  or  statement  of  the 
deficiency  to  be  supplied,  or  the  new  representations  that  are 
to  be  offered  of  events  and  characters. 

Mr.  Naylor,  however,  must  have  been  aware  that  the  value 
both  of  his  own  history  and  that  of  Mr.  Planta  must  arise  from 
the  difficulty  of  reading  the  original  authors. 

The  dramatic  manner  also,  it  must  be  observed,  in  which 
Mr.  Naylor  writes,  is  not  fitted  to  induce  the  reader  to  with- 
draw his  confidence  from  the  more  regular  and  sober  history  of 
Mr.  Planta. 

Mr.  Naylor's  work,  which  reaches  down  to  the  peace  of 
Westphalia,  must  no  doubt  be  contrasted  with  Planta's,  when 
any  particular  transaction  is  inquired  into  ;  for  it  is  written  on 
more  popular  principles. 

But  for  the  general  purposes  of  historical  information,  I  must 
still  refer  to  Planta,  who  seems  sufficiently  animated  with  proper 
sentiments  of  patriotism  and  independence,  at  least  while  he  is 
describing  the  origin  of  the  Helvetic  confederacy  ;  and  his  dis- 
taste to  popular  feelings  and  forms  of  government  may  be  suf- 
fered to  evaporate  in  notes  and  observations  on  the  French 
revolution,  when  it  is  considered  how  atrocious  has  been  the 
interference  of  the  French  rulers  and  their  emissaries  in  the 
concerns  of  his  native  country. 


LECTURE  IX. 

REFORMATION. 

THE  subjects  to  which  we  adverted  in  the  course  of  the  last 
lecture  would  be  found,  if  examined,  immediately  to  introduce 
us  to  others  of  such  general  importance,  that  the  particular  his- 
tories of  the  different  States  of  Europe  can  now  no  longer  be 
separately  surveyed. 

These  new  subjects  of  such  general  and  extraordinary  impor- 
tance are,  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reformation. 

For  the  present,  therefore,  we  must  leave  these  particular 
histories  of  England,  of  France  and  Germany,  and  endeavour 
to  familiarize  the  student  to  those  general  remarks  which  con- 
stitute the  philosophy  of  history,  and,  above  all,  to  induce  him 
to  fix  his  view  very  earnestly  on  the  events  I  have  just  men- 
tioned, the  greatest  of  modern  history  ;  the  Revival  of  Learning 
and  the  Reformation. 

A  few  preliminary  observations  may,  however,  be  suggested 
to  you.  In  the  course  of  your  reading,  as  you  come  down 
from  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages,  you  will  be  brought 
down  to  the  history  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
and  this  era,  you  will  perceive,  was  the  era  of  inventions  and 
discoveries. 

I  allude  more  particularly  to,  1st,  The  art  of  turning  linen 
into  paper.  2dly,  The  art  of  printing.  3dly,  The  composi- 
tion and  the  application  of  gunpowder,  more  especially  to  the 
purposes  of  war.  4thly,  The  discovery,  or  at  least  the  general 
application,  of  the  strange  property  of  the  magnetic  needle  to 
the  purposes  of  navigation.  The  importance  of  such  discov- 
eries will  be  sufficiently  obvious  to  your  own  reflections. 

To  each  of  these  inventions  and  discoveries  belongs  an 
appropriate  history  highly  deserving  of  curiosity,  (of  more 
curiosity,  indeed,  than  can  now  be  gratified)  and  each  strongly 


REFORMATION.  223 

illustrative  of  the  human  mind  ;  creeping  on  from  hint  to 
hint,  like  the  Portuguese  mariner  from  cape  to  cape,  owing 
something  to  good  fortune,  but  far  more,  and  even  that  good 
fortune  itself,  to  enterprise  and  perseverance.  You  will  see 
some  notice  taken  of  these  inventions  and  discoveries  in 
Koch. 

As  the  study  of  the  dark  ages  conducts  us  to  the  ages  of  in- 
ventions and  discoveries,  so  do  these  last  to  the  era  which  was 
marked  by  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation.  All 
these  periods  mingle  with  each  other,  the  prior  with  the  suc- 
ceeding one,  and  no  line  of  demarcation  can  be  traced  to  separ- 
ate or  define  them  ;  yet  may  they  be  known,  each  by  its  more 
prevailing  characteristic  of  darkness,  discovery,  and  progress  ; 
and,  as  we  are  now  supposed  to  have  passed  through  the  first 
two,  we  must  next  proceed  to  the  last,  the  era  of  the  revival 
of  learning  and  the  Reformation. 

To  this  era  we  shall  be  best  introduced  by  adverting  to  the 
general  situation  of  Europe  ;  more  particularly  by  turning  to 
the  eastern  portion  of  it  ;  for  we  shall  here  be  presented  with 
a  train  of  events,  which,  if  we  could  but  transport  ourselves 
in  imagination  to  this  fearful  period,  would  almost  totally 
overpower  us,  by  appearing  to  threaten  once  more,  as  in  the 
irruption  of  the  barbarians,  the  very  civilization  of  society. 
For  what  are  we  here  called  to  witness  ?  The  progress  of  the 
Turks  ;  the  terror  of  Bajazet  ;  the  danger  of  Constantinople  ; 
and  then  again  the  unexpected  appearance  of  savages  still 
more  dreadful  than  the  Turks,  Tamerlane  and  his  Tartars  ; 
the  extraordinary  achievements  of  these  tremendous  con- 
querors ;  afterwards  the  revival  of  the  Ottoman  power  ;  and  at 
last  the  destruction  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  of  Constantinople 
itself. 

This  series  of  memorable  events  has  been  detailed  by 
Mr.  Gibbon  with  that  spirit  and  knowledge  of  his  subject, 
that  compression  and  arrangement  which  so  particularly  distin- 
guish those  chapters  of  his  work,  where  his  theme  is  splendid 
or  important,  and  which  render  them  so  inexhaustible  a 
study  to  his  more  intelligent  readers.  I  must  refer  you  to 
the  work,  making,  however,  in  the  mean  time,  a  few  observa- 
tions. 

In  contemplating  the  final  extinction  of  the  eastern  empire, 


224  LECTURE  IX. 

it  may  be  some  consolation  to  us  to  think  that  Constantinople 
did  not  fall  without  a  blow  ;  that  the  city  was  not  surrendered 
without  a  defence,  which  was  worthy  of  this  last  representative 
of  human  greatness  ;  that  the  emperor  was  a  hero,  and  that 
amid  the  general  baseness  and  degeneracy,  he  could  collect 
around  him  a  few  at  least,  whom  the  Romans,  whom  the  con- 
querors of  mankind,  might  not  have  disdained  to  consider  as 
their  descendants. 

Some  melancholy  must  naturally  arise  at  the  termination  of 
this  memorable  siege  :  the  extinction  of  human  glory,  the  dis- 
tress, the  sufferings,  the  parting  agonies  of  this  mistress  of  the 
world. 

But  such  sentiments,  though  in  themselves  neither  useless 
nor  avoidable,  it  is  in  vain  entirely  to  indulge.  The  Grecian 
as  well  as  the  Roman  empire,  and  Constantinople,  the  last 
image  of  both,  must  for  ever  remain  amongst  the  innumerable 
instances  presented  by  history,  to  prove  that  it  is  in  vain  for 
a  state  to  expect  prosperity,  in  the  absence  of  private  and 
public  virtue  ;  and  that  every  nation,  where  the  honorable 
qualities  of  the  human  character  are  not  cultivated  and 
respected,  however  fortified  by  ancient  renown,  prescriptive 
veneration,  or  established  power,  sooner  or  later  must  be 
levelled  with  the  earth  and  trampled  under  the  feet  of  the  de- 
spoiler. 

The  fall  of  Constantinople  became,  when  too  late,  a  subject 
of  the  most  universal  terror  and  affliction  to  the  rest  of 
Europe. 

Yet  such  is  the  intermingled  nature  of  all  good  and  evil, 
that  some  benefit  resulted  to  the  world  from  the  calamities 
of  the  empire.  Constantinople  had  always  been  the  great 
repository  of  the  precious  remains  of  ancient  genius.  The 
Greeks  had  continued  to  pride  themselves  on  their  national 
superiority  over  the  Barbarians  of  the  West,  and  they  cele- 
brated, exclusively  as  their  own,  the  great  original  masters  of 
speculative  wisdom  and  practical  eloquence,  the  dramatists 
who  could  awaken  all  the  passions  of  the  heart,  and  the  poets 
who  could  fire  all  the  energies  of  the  soul  ;  Plato  and  Demos- 
thenes, Sophocles  and  Euripides,  Pindar  and  Homer.  But 
though  they  admired,  they  could  not  emulate,  the  models 
which  they  possessed.  Century  after  century  rolled  away, 


REFORMATION.  225 

and  these  inestimable  treasures,  however  valued  by  those  who 
inherited  them,  were  lost  to  mankind. 

Yet  as  the  fortunes  of  the  Greek  empire  declined,  the  inter- 
course between  Constantinople  and  the  rest  of  Europe  long 
contributed  to  the  improvement  of  the  latter  ;  and  the  splendor 
of  the  Greek  learning  and  philosophy,  even  as  early  as  the  thir- 
teenth century,  had  touched  with  a  morning  ray  the  summits  of 
the  great  kingdoms  of  the  west.  In  the  public  schools  and 
universities  of  Italy  and  Spain,  France  and  England,  distin- 
guished individuals,  like  our  own  Bacon  of  Oxford,  applied 
themselves  with  success  to  the  study  of  science,  and  even  of 
the  Grecian  literature.  In  the  fourteenth  century  the  generous 
emulation  of  Petrarch  and  his  friends  gave  a  distinct  promise  of 
the  subsequent  revival  of  learning.  While  the  Turks  were 
encircling  with  their  toils,  and  closing  round  their  destined 
prey,  the  scholars  of  the  east  were  continually  escaping  from 
the  terror  of  their  arms  or  their  oppression,  and,  after  the  de- 
struction of  the  metropolis  of  the  east,  it  was  in  the  west  alone 
they  could  find  either  freedom  or  affluence,  either  dignity  or 
leisure. 

In  the  sack  of  Constantinople,  amid  the  destruction  of  the 
libraries,  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  manuscripts  are 
said  to  have  disappeared  ;  but  the  scholars,  and  such  of  the 
manuscripts  as  escaped,  were  transferred  to  a  new  sphere  of 
existence  ;  to  nations  that  were  excited  by  a  spirit  of  indepen- 
dence and  emulation,  and  to  states  and  kingdoms  that  were  not 
retrograde  and  degenerating,  as  was  the  empire  of  the  Greeks. 
The  result  was  favorable  to  the  world  ;  like  the  idol  of  a  pagan 
temple,  the  city  of  the  east,  though  honored  and  revered  by 
succeeding  generations,  was  still  but  an  object  of  worship  with- 
out life  or  use.  When  overthrown,  however,  and  broken  into 
fragments  by  a  barbarian  assailant,  its  riches  were  disclosed, 
and  restored  at  once  to  activity  and  value. 

This  great  event,  the  revival  of  learning,  is  a  subject,  that, 
from  its  importance  and  extent,  may  occupy  indefinitely  the 
liberal  inquiry  of  the  student. 

There  has  been  an  introduction  to  the  subject,  or  a  history 
of  the  more  early  appearance  of  the  revival  of  learning, 
published  in  1798,  at  Cadell's,  which  seems  written  by  some 

VOL.   i.  29 


226  LECTURE  IX. 

author  of  adequate  information,  and  which  is  deserving  of 
perusal. 

I  shall,  however,  more  particularly  refer  you  to  the  notices 
of  Robertson,  in  his  introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  to  those 
of  Mosheirn  in  his  State  of  Learning  in  the  Thirteenth  and  Four- 
teenth Centuries  ;  above  all,  to  the  latter  part  of  the  fifty-third, 
and  of  the  sixty-sixth  chapter  of  Gibbon  ;  and  to  the  lives  of 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Leo  the  Tenth,  by  Mr.  Roscoe.  The 
observations  and  inquiries  of  writers  like  these  will  leave  little 
to  be  sought  after  by  those  who  consider  this  great  event  only 
in  connexion  with  other  events,  and  attribute  to  it  no  more 
than  its  relative  and  philosophic  importance.  Those  who  wish 
to  do  more,  will,  in  the  references  of  these  eminent  historians, 
find  original  authors  and  guides  very  amply  sufficient  to  occupy 
and  amuse  the  whole  leisure  even  of  a  literary  life. 

The  leading  observations  on  this  subject  will  not  escape 
your  reflections.  That  Constantinople  was  attacked  by  the 
Arabs  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  and  might  have  been 
swept  away  from  the  earth  by  any  of  the  various  Barbarians 
that  infested  it  at  an  earlier  time  ;  when  her  scholars  and  her 
manuscripts  could  have  had  no  effect  on  the  rest  of  mankind,  and 
when  the  seeds  of  future"  improvement  would  have  fallen  on  a 
rocky  soil,  where  no  flower  would  have  taken  root,  and  no  vege- 
tation quickened.  It  is  not  easy  to  determine  how  long  the 
darkness  of  Europe  might  in  this  case  have  continued,  and  how 
little  we  might  have  known  of  the  sages,  the  poets,  and  the 
orators  of  antiquity. 

Even  the  Latins  themselves,  after  besieging  and  capturing 
Constantinople  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
were  in  possession  of  the  city,  and  of  all  that  it  could  boast 
and  display  for  sixty  years,  and  in  vain.  Their  rude  and 
martial  spirits  were  insensible  to  any  wealth  which  glittered 
not  in  their  garments  or  on  their  board  ;  and  warriors  like 
these  could  little  comprehend  the  value  of  those  intellectual 
treasures  that  can  give  tranquillity  to  the  heart  and  enjoyment 
to  the  understanding.  But  at  a  still  later  period,  when  the 
same  city  was  once  more  and  finally  subdued  by  the  Turks, 
the  same  western  nations  had  been  prepared  for  the  due 
reception  of  what  had  to  no  purpose  been  placed  within  the 


REFORMATION.  227 

reach  of  their  more  uncivilized  forefathers ;  and  then  followed 
what  has  been  justly  denominated  the  revival  of  learning. 

We  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  fall  of  the  empire 
was  postponed  so  long,  and  observe  on  this,  as  on  other  occa- 
sions, how  different  is  the  effect  of  the  same  causes  and  events 
at  different  periods  of  society. 

Again,  we  may  observe  with  admiration  and  with  gratitude 
the  curiosity  and  zeal  of  the  human  mind  at  this  interesting  era. 
The  munificence  of  the  patron  and  the  labor  of  the  scholar, 
the  wealth  of  the  great  and  the  industry  of  the  wise,  could 
not  then  have  been  more  usefully  directed  ;  and  if  the  read- 
ers of  manuscripts  are  now  more  rare  ;  if  the  rivals  of  the  great 
scholars  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  now  seldom 
appear,  and  if  our  late  Greek  professor,  the  celebrated  Porson, 
for  instance,  could  no  longer  see  the  princes  and  potentates  of 
the  earth  contending  for  the  encouragement  of  his  genius,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  though  men  like  these  can  never  be 
without  their  use  or  their  admiration,  much  of  the  service 
which  they  offer  to  society  has  been  already  rendered  ;  that 
their  office  has  been  already,  to  a  considerable  degree,  per- 
formed ;  that  we  have  been  for  some  time  put  in  possession  of 
the  great  classical  authors  ;  of  the  models  of  taste  and  the 
materials  of  thought,  and  that  we  must  now  labor  to  emulate 
what  sufficiently  for  our  improvement  we  already  understand. 
We  must  reflect  that  were  mankind  not  to  exercise  their  un- 
ceremonious and  often  somewhat  unfeeling  criticism  upon 
merit  of  every  description,  and  applaud  it  precisely  to  the 
extent  in  which  it  contributes  to  their  benefit,  society  would 
be  soon  retrograde,  or  at  best  but  stationary,  and  each  suc- 
ceeding age  would  no  longer  be  marked  by  its  own  appropriate 
enlargement  of  the  boundaries  of  human  knowledge. 

A  concluding  observation  seems  to  be,  that  an  obvious 
alteration  has  been  made  in  the  situation  of  men  of  genius. 
They  need  no  longer  hang  upon  the  smiles  of  a  patron  ;  they 
need  no  longer  debase  the  muses  or  themselves  ;  the  progress 
of  human  prosperity  has  given  them  a  public  who  can  appre- 
ciate and  reward  their  labors  ;  and  even  from  that  public,  if 
too  slow  in  intellect  or  too  poor  in  virtue,  an  appeal  has 
been  opened  to  posterity  by  the  invention  of  printing  ;  and 
a  Locke  may  see  his  volumes  stigmatized  and  burnt,  or  a 


228  LECTURE  IX. 

Newton  the  slow  progress  of  his  reasonings,  with  that  tran- 
quillity which  is  the  privilege  of  genuine  merit,  and  with  that 
confident  anticipation  of  the  future,  which  may  now  be  the 
enjoyment  of  all  those,  who  are  conscious  that  they  have 
labored  well,  and  that  they  deserve  to  be  esteemed  the  bene- 
factors of  mankind. 

But  you  will  not  long  be  engaged  in  the  histories  I  have 
mentioned,  before  you  will  perceive  that,  at  the  opening  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  a  new  and  indeed  fearful  experiment 
was  to  be  made  upon  mankind  ;  a  spirit  not  only  of  literary 
inquiry,  but  of  religious  inquiry,  was  to  go  forth  ;  the  minds 
of  men  were  everywhere  to  be  agitated  on  concerns  the  most 
dear  to  them,  and  the  church  of  Rome  was  to  be  attacked,  not 
only  in  its  discipline,  but  in  its  doctrine  ;  not  only  in  its  prac- 
tice, but  in  its  faith. 

Opposition  to  the  papacy  in  these  points,  or  what  was  then 
called  heresy,  had,  indeed,  always  existed.  The  student  will 
be  called  upon,  as  he  reads  the  preceding  history,  to  notice 
and  respect  the  more  obvious  representatives  of  this  virtuous 
struggle  of  the  human  mind,  the  Albigenses,  our  own  Wick- 
liffe  and  the  Lollards,  as  well  as  the  Hussites  in  Bohemia. 
But,  as  it  was  in  vain  that  the  works  of  literature  were  placed 
within  the  reach  of  the  Franks,  who  first  captured  Constanti- 
nople, so  the  doctrines  of  truth  and  the  rights  of  religious 
inquiry  were  to  little  purpose  presented  to  the  consideration 
of  the  nations  of  Europe  by  the  more  early  reformers  ;  "  the 
light  shone  in  the  darkness,  but  the  darkness  comprehended 
it  not."  At  the  opening,  however,  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  condition  of  Europe  was  in  some  respects  essentially  im- 
proved ;  and  it  now  seemed  possible  that  they  who  asserted 
the  cause  of  the  human  mind  in  its  dearest  interests  might  at 
least  obtain  attention,  and  probably  see  their  laudable  exertions 
crowned  with  success. 

But  whatever  might  be  the  virtues  or  the  success  of  distin- 
guished individuals  in  establishing  their  opinions,  it  was  but 
too  certain  that  a  reformation  in  the  doctrines  of  religion  could 
not  be  accomplished  without  the  most  serious  evils  ;  these 
might  be  indeed  entirely  overbalanced  by  the  good  that  was  to 
result,  but  the  most  afflicting  consequences  must  necessarily  in 
the  first  place  ensue. 


REFORMATION.  229 

In  discussing  this  great  subject  of  the  Reformation  (too  vast 
to  be  properly  treated  but  in  a  distinct  work  for  the  purpose), 
I  shall  first  endeavour  briefly  to  show  why  these  serious  evils 
were  to  be  expected  ;  and  then,  what  was  the  benefit  which  it 
was  probable  might  also  accrue.  In  the  next  place,  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  point  out  such  particular  transactions  in  the  history  of 
the  Reformation,  as  illustrate  the  representations  which  I  shall 
thus  make.  That  is,  if  I  may  venture,  for  the  purposes  of  ex- 
planation, to  adopt  language  so  assuming,  I  shall,  in  the  re- 
mainder of  this  lecture,  propose  to  your  consideration  the 
theory  of  the  events  of  the  Reformation ;  and  in  the  next,  I 
shall  endeavour  to  show  how  this  theory  and  the  facts  corre- 
spond. Lastly,  I  shall  mention  such  books  and  treatises  as  may 
be  sufficient  to  furnish  you  with  proper  information  on  every 
part  of  this  momentous  subject. 

Now  the  great  reason  why  the  most  serious  and  extensive 
evils  were  to  be  expected  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Refor- 
mation was,  first,  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind. 

But  this  is  so  important  a  principle  in  every  part  of  the 
history  of  the  Reformation,  and  the  whole  is  so  unintelligible 
unless  this  principle  be  first  thoroughly  understood,  that  I  must 
consider  it  more  at  length  than  I  could  wish,  or  than  might 
at  first  sight  appear  necessary.  It  is  necessary,  however, 
for  no  human  mind  in  its  sound  state  of  reasonableness  and 
humanity,  can  possibly  conceive  the  scenes  that  took  place  in 
the  times  of  the  Reformation,  and  even  in  those  that  preceded 
and  followed  them  ;  and  it  is  quite  a  problem  in  the  science  of 
human  nature  to  account  for  the  astonishing  barbarity  and  even 
stupidity  of  which  men  on  these  occasions  proved  themselves 
to  be  capable. 

A  celebrated  author  (A.  Smith),  in  the  most  delightful  of  all 
philosophical  books,  has  referred  the  origin  of  all  our  moral 
sentiments  to  sympathy.  Without  presuming  to  decide  how 
far  such  a  solution  is  complete,  it  will  be  readily  allowed  that 
he  has  fully  shown  how  powerful  is  the  principle  itself,  how 
early  and  how  universal.  It  would  be  strange,  if  it  affected 
not,  as  it  certainly  does,  the  opinions  we  form,  and  the  senti- 
ments we  utter. 

Suppose  a  person  to  have  taken  the  same  view  of  a  subject 
with  ourselves,  how  pleased  are  we  to  observe  this  concur- 


230  LECTURE  IX. 

rence  with  our  own  decisions.  Does  he  speak  ?  how  agreea- 
ble is  his  manner  !  Does  he  reason  ?  how  solid  are  his  argu- 
ments !  We  admire  the  reasoning,  we  love  the  reasoner  ;  his 
thoughts  are  like  our  thoughts,  his  feelings  like  our  feelings  ; 
throughout  there  is  a  pleasure,  for  throughout  there  is  a  sympa- 
thy. Such  a  man  has  a  claim  on  our  attention,  our  kindness, 
our  friendship  ;  we  applaud  and  honor  him  ;  we  wish  every 
one  to  listen  to  him,  and  imbibe  like  ourselves  sentiments 
which  we  are  now  more  than  ever  convinced  should  be  enter- 
tained by  all  men. 

But  reverse  the  supposition,  and  how  different  is  the  pic- 
ture !  How  unmeaning  are  the  observations,  how  poor  the 
arguments  of  him  who  is  an  advocate  for  a  cause  which  we  dis- 
approve !  We  listen,  and  we  can  only  hear  inadmissible  state- 
ments, intolerable  assertions,  throughout,  nothing  but  mistake, 
declamation,  and  delusion. 

The  reasoner,  it  seems,  finds  no  longer  an  echo  in  our 
bosoms,  and,  giving  us  no  pleasure,  we  declare  it  to  be  a  loss 
of  time  to  listen  to  him.  We  question  his  information,  his 
ability  ;  proceed,  perhaps,  to  suspect  his  motives  ;  suspect  in- 
deed any  thing,  but  an  error  in  our  own  judgment.  It  is  indeed 
a  pity,  we  cry,  that  such  fallacies  should  be  heard  ;  they  may, 
after  all,  if  repeated,  gain  ground  ;  men  should  not  be  suffered 
to  propagate  such  false  opinions.  Surely,  we  conclude,  the 
cause  of  propriety  and  truth  is  of  some  consequence  to  the 
world,  and  ought  by  all  wise  and  good  men  to  be  vindicated. 

From  beginnings  like  these,  to  what  extent  may  not  the 
rnind  be  carried  by  contest  and  collision.  When  men  speak, 
or  write,  and  at  every  word  there  is  a  discord,  and  pain  at 
every  moment  given  or  received,  how  soon  is  dispute  con- 
verted into  dislike,  hardened  into  hatred,  exasperated  into 
rage.  What  folly  and  what  outrage  may  not  be  expected  to 
ensue  ! 

But  any  effect  thus  described  is  proportionally  accelerated 
and  increased,  whenever  the  object  of  discussion  either  really 
is  or  can  be  supposed  to  be,  interesting  and  important. 

Now  it  must  be  observed  that  every  thing  becomes  interest- 
ing and  important  that  can  be  brought  into  any  alliance  with  the 
religious  principle. 

This  religious  principle  is  in  itself  so  natural,  so  just,  and 


REFORMATION.  231 

so  respectable,  that  it  can  transfer  its  own  respectability  to  ev- 
ery thing,  which  by  any  workings  of  the  reason  or  of  the  im- 
agination it  can  be  made  to  approach.  All  the  powerful  and 
laudable  feelings  of  our  hearts  are  here  instantly  engaged. 
The  opinion  we  adopt,  the  rite  we  perform,  we  conceive  to  be 
acceptable  to  the  Almighty,  and  being  so,  it  is  no  longer  with- 
in the  proper  province  of  the  discussions  of  reason  ;  it  is 
piety  to  retain,  sinfulness  to  abandon  it ;  it  is  our  first  duty,  it 
is  our  best  happiness,  to  propagate  it  ;  to  extend  to  others  that 
favor  of  the  Deity  which  it  procures  for  ourselves  :  but  to  hear 
it  questioned,  contradicted,  or  despised,  is  to  submit  not  only 
to  falsehood,  but  to  impiety  ;  to  be  indifferent  to  the  truth,  to 
be  recreants  to  our  most  solemn  obligations,  to  refuse  to  vindi- 
cate the  cause  of  heaven  and  of  our  God. 

Every  motive  here  conspires  to  exasperate  our  sympathy 
and  our  judgment,  our  feelings  and  our  reason,  to  extrava- 
gancies the  most  unlimited  ;  the  natural  propensities  of  the 
human  mind  to  intolerance  are  here  so  influenced  by  an  idea, 
in  which  every  other  must  be  absorbed,  the  idea  of  the  Su- 
preme Being,  that  all  the  common  and  regular  movements  of 
the  passions  are  overpowered,  all  the  more  ordinary  sugges- 
tions of  the  understanding  at  an  end  ;  and  the  man  with  bis 
faculties  yet  sound  and  awake,  with  his  heart  still  beating  in  his 
bosom,  sees,  without  shuddering,  a  being  like  himself,  for  some 
difference  in  his  religious  creed,  racked  on  a  wheel  or  agoniz- 
ing in  flames,  and  yet  can  suppose  that  he  is  thus  discharging 
an  act  of  duty  to  his  Creator  and  of  benevolence  to  his  fel- 
low-creatures ;  that  he  is  conforming  to  the  precepts  of  reli- 
gion, and  approving  himself  an  acceptable  servant  to  the  God 
of  mercy  ! 

Is  human  nature  then,  it  will  be  said,  so  totally  without  aid 
and  direction,  is  the  duty  of  toleration  so  unintelligible,  is  the 
truth  on  this  subject  so  difficult  to  be  discovered  ? 

The  duty  of  toleration  is  very  intelligible  ;  it  is  founded  on 
the  great  axiom  of  all  morality,  that  we  are  to  do  to  others  as 
we  should  think  it  just  should  be  done  to  ourselves. 

There  is  no  want  of  evidence  in  this  truth  ;  it  instantly  finds 
admission  to  the  understanding  ;  but  truths  must  do  much  more 
than  find  admission  to  the  understanding,  or  the  conduct  will 
not  be  affected. 


232  LECTURE  IX. 

The  history  of  mankind  has  been  a  continual  illustration  of 
the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind.  I  shall  mention  a 
few  examples. 

The  most  memorable  instance  of  suffering  from  intolerance 
is  that  of  our  Saviour  himself.  It  was  in  vain  that  Pilate 
asked  the  Jews,  "  Why,  what  evil  hath  he  done  ?  "  The  only 
answer  that  could  be  obtained  was,  "  Crucify  him  !  crucify 
him  !  " 

A  true  picture  of  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  on  these  sub- 
jects at  all  times. 

"  Which  of  the  prophets  have  not  your  fathers  perse- 
cuted ? "  said  the  martyr  Stephen  in  his  last  moments  of 
peril.  To  the  death  of  this  innocent  man  was  Paul  consent- 
ing, and  he  stood  unmoved  by  the  spectacle  of  his  faith  and 
sufferings. 

The  same  Paul  was  still  exhibiting  the  natural  workings  of 
the  human  mind,  he  was  still  u  breathing  out  threatenings  and 
slaughter  "  against  the  disciples,  when  it  pleased  the  Almighty, 
by  a  particular  interposition  of  his  power,  to  check  the  unrigh- 
teous labors  of  his  ardent  mind,  and  to  purify  for  his  service  a 
man  worthy  of  a  better  cause,  and  destined  to  be  the  apostle  of 
benevolence  and  truth. 

The  subsequent  sufferings  of  the  disciples  and  the  early 
Christians  attested,  indeed,  the  sincerity  of  their  own  faith, 
but  show  too  forcibly  the  intolerance  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 
The  very  evidence  of  our  religion,  in  one  point  of  view,  is 
thus  measured  by  the  measure  of  human  intolerance,  and  might 
serve,  if  any  thing  could  serve,  as  an  eternal  warning  to  those 
who  presume  to  offer  violence  to  the  religious  opinions  of  their 
fellow-creatures. 

When  the  younger  Pliny  was  Governor  of  BithynSa,  the 
Christians  were  brought  before  him  as  men  who  would  not 
conform  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  national  worship. 
Two  remarkable  letters  passed  between  him  and  the  good 
Trajan  on  the  subject ;  letters  well  known  to  those  who  have 
considered  the  evidences  of  their  religion,  and  which  exhibit 
a  very  valuable  picture  of  the  first  suggestions  of  the  human 
mind  in  concerns  of  this  particular  nature.  The  result,  how- 
ever, was,  that  Pliny  ordered  the  Christians  to  be  led  out  to 
execution  ;  he  had  no  objection,  nor  had  the  Romans,  to 


REFORMATION.  233 

their  worship  of  Christ ;  but  when  the  Christians  refused  to 
pay  homage,  in  like  manner,  to  the  gods  of  Rome,  this  sort 
of  perverseness,  says  Pliny,  was  evidently  a  crime,  and  deserv- 
ing of  condign  punishment ;  that  is,  when  the  religious  opinions 
of  the  Christian  appeared  to  be  in  direct  opposition  to  his  own, 
these  opinions  were  to  be  put  down  by  force. 

The  ancients  have  been  sometimes  represented  as  tolerant, 
but  this  is  lightly  said  ;  they  were  never  put  to  any  trial  of  the 
kind ;  from  the  nature  of  their  polytheism  they  never  could  be. 
Had  Pliny  been  questioned  at  the  time  by  a  man  more  enlight- 
ened than  himself,  he  would  no  doubt  have  made  the  answer 
which  others,  with  less  excuse  than  Pliny,  have  but  too  fre- 
quently offered,  that  it  was  one  thing  to  allow  the  Christians  to 
sacrifice  to  Christ,  and  another  thing  to  allow  them  to  contra- 
dict the  religion  of  the  state  ;  that  he  was  ready  to  permit  them 
to  worship  the  Deity  according  to  their  own  notions,  but  that 
it  was  impossible  to  suffer  them  to  destroy  the  faith  of  others  ; 
and  that  he  could  see  a  clear  distinction  between  toleration  in 
religion,  and  indifference  to  true  religion. 

The  necessity  of  free  inquiry,  as  a  means  of  attaining  to 
truth  ;  the  equal  eye  with  which  the  great  Creator,  it  must  be 
presumed,  will  survey  the  sincere  though  varying  efforts  of  his 
creatures  in  pursuit  of  it ;  the  injustice  of  doing  to  the  Christians 
what  he,  as  a  Christian,  would  think  unreasonable  and  cruel ; 
topics  of  this  obvious  nature  would  have  been  offered  to  the 
consideration  of  Pliny,  probably  with  the  same  ill  success  which 
has  accompanied  them  on  every  occasion,  when  the  rights  of 
religion  and  humanity  have  been  pleaded. 

Can  two  contradictory  opinions,  says  the  pious  man,  be 
equally  true  ?  May  they  not,  it  may  be  answered,  may 
they  not  be  equally  accepted  by  the  Almighty  Father,  if 
offered  to  him  with  equal  sincerity  and  humility  of  spirit,  and 
after  the  same  petitions  for  his  grace  and  assistance  ?  But  at 
all  events  it  is  not  for  human  beings  to  attempt  to  propagate 
truth  by  force. 

From  the  time  of  Pliny  to  the  establishment  of  Christianity 
under  Constantine,  from  Constantine  to  the  establishment  of 
the  papal  power,  from  that  fatal  event  to  the  destruction  of 
Constantinople,  the  Christian  world  was  rent  into  divisions, 

VOL.   i.  30 


234  LECTURE  IX. 

each  in  its  turn  persecuting  the  other.  The  student  may  see 
in  the  pages  of  Gibbon  the  disgraceful  and  often  bloody 
hostilities  of  contending  sects  ;  and  he  will  much  more  easily 
comprehend  the  guilt  of  the  rival  disputants  than  the  subjects 
of  their  unchristian  animosity. 

I  do  not  detain  you  with  any  allusions  to  particular  passages 
in  Gibbon,  in  Mosheim,  or  in  any  other  ecclesiastic  historian. 
You  will  read  them  yourselves  ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  many 
occasions  that  will  occur  in  the  delivery  of  these  lectures,  where 
I  am  obliged  to  despatch  in  a  single  sentence  a  mass  of  read- 
ing that  may  afterwards  very  properly  occupy  you  for  many 
days  and  weeks.  It  is  sufficient  for  me,  at  present,  that  I  may 
safely  assume  the  general  fact,  that  the  specimens  of  the  nat- 
ural intolerance  of  the  human  mind  to  be  found  in  such  writers, 
are  perfectly  innumerable. 

We  have  hitherto  spoken,  first  of  the  intolerance  of  the  Jews 
to  the  early  Christians  ;  afterwards  of  the  pagans  to  the  follow- 
ers of  Christ ;  lastly,  of  the  Christians  to  each  other.  But  as 
we  descend  through  the  history  of  Europe,  we  shall  next,  have 
to  observe  how  lamentable  and  totally  unrelenting  have  been  the 
persecutions  which  the  Christians  have  in  their  turn  exercised 
upon  the  Jews.  To  speak  literally  and  without  a  figure,  this 
unhappy  race  seems  not  to  have  been  considered  by  our  ances- 
tors as  within  the  pale  of  humanity  ;  and  our  great  poet,  who 
drew  mankind  just  as  he  found  them,  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Shylock  a  train  of  reasoning  that  proceeds  upon  this  dreadful 
supposition  :  —  "Has  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  has  not  a  Jew  hands  ?  " 
&c.  &c.  "  Fed  with  the  same  food,  warmed  and  cooled  by 
the  same  winter  and  summer,  as  a  Christian  is  ?  " 

As  we  descend  to  times  a  little  later,  we  at  length  perceive 
even  a  regular  tribunal  created  for  the  avowed  purposes  of  per- 
secution, the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition. 

And  who,  let  us  ask,  was  among  its  earliest  approvers  ? 
Louis  the  Ninth  of  France,  the  most  generous  and  just  of  men. 

And  here  I  pause  ;  it  cannot  be  necessary  that  I  should  pro- 
ceed any  further. 

Calling,  therefore,  to  rnind  what  we  have  passed  through  in 
this  brief  review,  and  what  we  before  endeavoured  to  show, 
I  may  now  finally  observe,  that  such  appears  to  me,  in  the 


REFORMATION.  235 

first  place,  the  explanation  and  the  theory  of  the  natural  intol- 
erance of  every  human  mind  on  every  subject,  and  more 
particularly  on  religious  subjects  ;  and  such,  in  the  second 
place,  the  leading  facts  of  history  to  exemplify  this  last  intol- 
erance on  religious  subjects,  prior  to  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation. 

At  that  epoch,  therefore,  mankind  had  very  fully  exhibited 
their  real  nature  ;  and  it  was  very  evident,  if  differences  in 
religious  opinions  were  to  arise,  how  afflicting  would  be  the 
consequences. 

But  it  must  have  been  clear,  in  the  next  place,  that  such 
differences  must  arise  ;  for  the  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  was 
to  be  called  into  action  :  and  upon  what  was  it  to  be  exer- 
cised ?  Upon  the  Scriptures  themselves,  and  upon  the  works 
of  the  fathers  :  writings  composed  in  what  to  the  inquirers 
were  dead  languages. 

Now,  whenever  the  human  mind  exercises  its  powers  with 
freedom,  different  men  will  take  different  views  of  the  same 
subject  ;  they  will  draw  different  conclusions,  even  where  the 
materials  presented  to  their  judgment  are  the  same.  Not  only 
this,  but  in  points  of  religious  doctrine,  from  the  very  awful- 
ness  of  the  subject,  the  mind  scarcely  presumes  to  exercise 
its  faculties  ;  and  in  these  disquisitions  men  have  no  longer  the 
chance  (whatever  it  may  be)  which  they  have  on  other  sub- 
jects, of  arguing  themselves  into  agreement.  Again,  the  evi- 
dence which  the  reformers  had  to  produce  to  each  other  for 
their  respective  opinions,  was  their  respective  interpretation 
of  one  or  many  different  texts  of  Scripture,  of  one  or  many 
different  passages  in  the  writings  of  the  fathers. 

Now,  of  all  such  evidence  it  must  be  observed,  that  it 
never,  from  the  very  nature  of  it,  could  be  demonstrative.  In 
mathematical  questions,  where  the  relations  of  quantity  are 
alone  concerned,  a  dispute  can  be  completely  terminated  ;  be- 
cause from  wrong  premises  or  false  reasoning,  a  contradiction 
can  be  at  last  shown  to  result  :  some  impossibility  appears  ; 
the  greater  is  equal  to  the  less,  or  the  less  to  the  greater. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  many  parts  of  the  sciences,  be- 
cause a  question  can  here  always  be  asked  which  admits  of  a 
precise  answer,  and  is,  at  the  same  time,  decisive  of  the  con- 
test, —  What  is  the  fact  ?  —  what  says  the  experiment  ? 


236  LECTUBE  IX. 

But  when  a  question  is  to  depend  on  the  interpretation  of 
texts  and  passages  in  Scripture,  the  case  is  totally  altered  ; 
for  of  the  different  meanings  that  can  be  affixed,  no  one  can 
be  shown  to  be  (strictly  speaking)  impossible.  They  may  be 
shown  to  be  more  or  less  reasonable,  but  no  more  :  the  scale 
of  evidence  here  is  reasonableness  ;  metaphysically  speaking, 
is  probability.  Men  cannot  be  proved  in  these,  as  in  mathe- 
matical disquisitions,  to  be  totally  right  or  totally  wrong  ;  they 
cannot  be  left  at  once  without  an  argument  or  without  an 
opponent.  A  reasoner  on  such  subjects  may,  from  inferior- 
ity of  judgment,  or  what  is  called  perversity  of  judgment,  or 
any  other  cause,  adopt  that  meaning  which  is  the  less  sound 
and  just  of  any  two  that  may  be  proposed  to  him  ;  but  if  he 
does,  he  can  never,  by  any  consequent  impossibility,  be  abso- 
lutely compelled  to  admit  the  more  reasonable  opinion  of  his 
opponent. 

It  is  very  true  that  this  probable  evidence  is  sufficient  for 
men  to  reason  and  act  upon  ;  but  it  is  not  sufficient  to  pre- 
clude the  possibility  of  dispute  ;  and  this  is  all  that  is  here 
contended  for.  When  the  nature  of  the  evidence  is  this  of 
probability,  the  varying  powers  of  judgment  and  the  ready 
passions  of  mankind  have  full  liberty  to  interfere  ;  men  may 
be  more  or  less  reasonable,  as  these  causes  direct.  No  such 
interference  is  possible  in  discussions  that  concern  matters  of 
experiment  and  fact,  and  the  relations  of  quantity. 

We  have,  therefore,  no  sects  or  parties  in  mathematics, 
but  they  abound  in  every  other  department  of  human  opinion. 

We  have  now,  therefore,  to  present  to  the  consideration  of 
the  student  two  observations  ;  they  are  these  :  not  only,  in 
the  first  place,  that  the  human  mind  was  naturally  intolerant  ; 
but  that,  in  the  second  place,  the  evidence  that  could  be  laid 
before  it  never,  from  the  nature  of  it,  could  be  demonstrative  ; 
and  that,  therefore,  this  intolerance  had  full  opportunity  to 
act. 

But  there  is  yet  another  observation  to  be  made. 

It  was  not  only  that  disputes  could  not  be  necessarily  termi- 
nated even  when  exercised  upon  the  great  and  proper  topics 
of  debate,  but  it  was  clear,  both  from  the  nature  of  the  hu- 
man mind  and  from  the  testimony  of  history,  that  men,  when 


REFORMATION.  237 

awakened  to  the  consideration  of  religious  subjects,  would  as- 
suredly engage  in  the  most  subtile  metaphysical  inquiries,  and, 
by  their  vain  efforts  to  know  and  to  teach  more  than  the  Scrip- 
tures had  taught  them  (or  than,  it  may  be  presumed,  the  Al- 
mighty Creator  intended  their  faculties  to  comprehend),  would 
involve  themselves  and  their  followers  in  disputes,  which  it 
would  be  more  than  ever  impossible  to  set  at  rest  by  reasoning, 
and  which,  on  that  very  account,  would  be  only  the  more  cal- 
culated to  exasperate  their  passions. 

In  addition  to  these  considerations,  there  is  another  ;  we 
must  reflect  on  the  situation  of  the  world  at  this  particular 
epoch. 

Europe  had  no  doubt  improved  during  several  of  the  pre- 
ceding centuries,  and  was  even  rapidly  improving  at  the  time. 
But  it  must  still  be  noted,  that  literature  had  made  as  yet  little 
progress,  science  still  less  ;  men  had  not  been  softened  by  the 
fine  arts,  and  the  peaceful  pleasures  which  they  afford  ;  they 
had  not  been  humanized  by  much  intercourse  with  each  other  ; 
martial  prowess  was  their  virtue  ;  superstitious  observances 
their  religion.  In  this  situation,  they  were  on  a  sudden  to  have 
their  passions  roused,  and  their  intellectual  talents  exercised 
upon  subjects  which  require  to  their  adjustment  all  the  virtues 
and  all  the  improvement  of  which  the  human  character  is 
capable. 

On  these  accounts  the  prospect  of  mankind  on  the  open- 
ing of  the  Reformation  was  very  awful ;  it  was  evident  much 
misery  must  result  from  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  mind, 
from  the  materials,  with  which  that  intolerance  was  now  to 
be  supplied,  and  from  the  general  ignorance  and  rudeness  of 
society. 

But  there  was  yet  another  consideration  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count. 

We  have  hitherto  endeavoured  to  estimate  the  evils  to  which 
the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  would  give  occasion,  by 
stating  its  more  natural  and  appropriate  effects  upon  the  human 
mind  ;  but  the  religious  principle  which  was  thus  to  be  awaken- 
ed was  sure  to  intermingle  itself  in  all  earthly  concerns  ;  it  was 
sure  to  give  names  to  parties,  to  multiply  afresh  the  causes  of 
irritation  and  offence,  and  to  add  new  restlessness  and  motion 
to  the  politics  of  the  world. 


238  LECTURE  IX. 

Again,  there  was  even  an  inherent  and  inevitable  difficulty 
in  the  subject,  by  whatever  unexpected  influence  of  mod- 
eration and  reason  mankind  had  chosen  to  be  controlled. 
The  Roman  hierarchy  were  the  spiritual  instructors  of  the 
people,  and  as  such  had  ecclesiastical  revenues.  But  it  was 
evident,  that  if  there  arose  a  set  of  men  who  disputed  the 
doctrines  of  that  hierarchy,  these  last  would  no  longer  think 
it  reasonable  that  such  revenues  should  be  so  applied  ;  they 
would  represent  them  as  devoted  only  to  the  unrighteous 
purposes  of  superstition  and  error  ;  they  would  insist  upon  at 
least  a  share,  if  not  the  whole,  for  the  support  of  themselves, 
while  engaged  in  the  propagation  of  truth  and  genuine  Chris- 
tianity. The  established  teachers  would,  therefore,  be  dis- 
turbed in  their  possessions,  deprived  of  their  benefices,  some 
perhaps  thrown  naked  and  defenceless  into  the  world  at  ad- 
vanced periods  of  age  and  infirmity.  Such  mutations  of  prop- 
erty, it  was  but  too  clear,  could  neither  be  attempted  nor 
executed  without  violence  :  and  violence,  so  exercised,  could 
not  but  be  attended  by  the  most  furious  animosities,  disturb- 
ance, and  calamity. 

Again,  when  these  revenues  had  been  converted  to  the 
support  of  the  first  reformed  preachers,  these  were  likely  to 
be  in  their  turn  opposed  by  new  and  succeeding  descriptions 
of  religious  inquirers  ;  the  same  reasoning  would,  therefore, 
again  be  urged,  the  same  struggle  be  repeated,  the  same 
force  be  employed.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  statesmen,  and 
princes,  and  warriors  were  sure,  from  the  first,  to  be  engaged 
in  all  these  disputes,  and  to  kindle  in  the  general  flame  ;  and 
the  controversies  of  religion  were  sure  to  be  decided,  like  the 
ordinary  contests  of  mankind,  by  the  sword,  —  by  the  sword, 
indeed,  but  amid  a  conflict  of  passions  rendered  more  than 
ever  blind  and  sanguinary  from  the  materials  which  were 
now  added  of  more  than  human  obstinacy,  intrepidity,  and 
rancor. 

Such  were  the  evils  that  were  to  be  expected  at  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Reformation,  from  the  intolerance  of 
men,  from  the  nature  of  the  evidence  that  could  be  produced 
to  them  in  their  new  subjects  of  dispute,  from  the  particular 
metaphysical  turn  which  these  disputes  would  probably  take, 
from  the  unimproved  state  of  society  in  Europe,  from  the 


REFORMATION.  239 

intermixture  of  the  earthly  politics  of  the  world  with  religious 
concerns,  and  from  the  inevitable  and  difficult  question  of  the 
disposal  of  the  ecclesiastical  revenues. 

But  what  was  then  the  benefit  that  mankind  was  likely  to 
receive  which  might  compensate  for  the  evils  to  which  they 
were  to  be  thus  exposed  ?  The  benefit,  that  it  was  probable 
would  result,  was  above  all  price  ;  it  was  this  :  that  they  who 
disputed  the  doctrines  of  the  Romish  church,  however  they 
might  for  a  time  appeal  to  the  pope  or  general  councils,  must 
at  length  appeal  to  the  Bible  itself ;  that  the  sacred  text  would 
be  therefore  examined,  criticized,  and  understood  ;  that,  how- 
ever violent  or  unjust  the  force  which  the  hierarchy  or  the 
civil  magistrate  might  attempt  to  exercise,  still,  as  the  human 
mind  was  capable  of  the  steadiest  resistance,  when  animated  by 
the  cause  of  truth  ;  as  men  were  equal  to  the  contempt  of  im- 
prisonment, tortures,  or  death,  for  the  sake  of  their  religious 
opinions  ;  as  history  had  borne  sufficient  testimony  to  the  exalt- 
ed constancy  of  our  nature  in  these  respects  ;  —  Jftaf,  therefore, 
the  reformers  must  in  all  probability  succeed  in  establishing  a 
purer  faith,  and  must  at  all  events  contribute  to  improve  both 
the  doctrines  and  the  conduct  of  their  opponents  ;  that  from  the 
general  fermentation  which  would  ensue,  it  could  not  but  happen 
that  the  Bible  would  be  opened ;  that  doctrines  would  no  longer 
be  taken  upon  authority  ;  that  religion  would  no  longer  consist 
so  much  in  vain  ceremonies  and  passive  ignorance;  that  devo- 
tion would  become  a  reasonable  sacrifice  ;  and  that  the  gospel 
would,  in  fact,  be  a  second  time  promulgated  to  an  erring  and 
sinful  world. 

Now,  what  further  benefit  might  attend  this  emancipation  of 
the  human  mind  from  its  spiritual  thraldom,  it  might  have  been 
difficult  at  the  time  properly  to  estimate.  But  this  new  gift  of 
Christianity  to  mankind  was  a  blessing  in  itself  sufficient  to 
outweigh  all  temporal  calamities,  of  whatever  extent.  To  be 
the  humble  instruments,  under  Divine  Providence,  of  impart- 
ing such  a  benefit  to  the  world,  was  the  virtuous  ambition,  the 
pious  hope,  of  the  early  reformers.  It  was  this  that  gave  such 
activity  to  their  exertions,  such  inflexibility  to  their  fortitude. 
This  sacred  ardor,  this  holy  energy,  in  the  cause  of  religious 
truth,  is  the  remaining  principle  which,  in  conjunction  with 
those  I  have  mentioned,  will  be  found  to  have  actuated  mankind 


240  LECTURE  IX. 

during  the  ages  we  are  now  to  consider.  As  the  principles 
before  mentioned  gave  occasion  to  all  that  was  dark  and  afflict- 
ing in  the  scene,  so  did  the  principle  now  mentioned  give  oc- 
casion to  all  that  was  bright,  and  cheering,  and  elevating  to  the 
soul  ;  united,  they  may  serve,  when  followed  up  through  their 
remote  as  well  as  immediate  effects,  to  explain,  as  I  conceive, 
the  events  of  the  Reformation,  and  for  some  ages  all  the  more 
important  part  of  the  history  of  Europe. 


LECTURE  X. 

REFORMATION. 

I  ENDEAVOURED  in  my  last  lecture  to  describe  the  evils  to 
which  mankind  would  probably  be  exposed  by  any  attempts 
to  produce  the  reformation  of  religion,  and  the  benefits  by 
which  such  evils  were  likely  to  be  overbalanced. 

I  must  now  consider  how  far,  in  point  of  fact,  such  evils  and 
such  benefits  were  really  experienced. 

And  here  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  remind  you  of  one  of 
the  difficulties  which  I  announced  to  you  in  my  introductory 
lecture,  as  more  particularly  belonging  to  all  lectures  on  his- 
tory ;  the  impossibility  that  a  lecturer  must  find  of  presenting 
to  his  hearer  all  that  has  passed  in  review  before  his  own  mind, 
and  the  blank  that  must  therefore  be  left,  till  the  subsequent 
diligence  of  the  student  has  furnished  him  with  the  same  mate- 
rials of  judgment  which  the  lecturer  had  before  him.  Thus, 
in  the  present  instance,  the  opinions  which  were  presented  to 
your  reflection,  in  the  lecture  of  yesterday,  were  suggested 
by  a  vast  assemblage  of  facts,  an  assemblage  which  in  reality 
constitutes  the  history  of  the  Reformation.  How,  then,  are 
these  to  be  presented  to  you  ?  The  history  cannot  be  given 
here,  nor  any  part  of  it  :  a  few  allusions  and  references  are  all 
the  expedients  I  can  have  recourse  to.  These  will  at  present 
convey  to  your  minds  little  that  can  operate  upon  them  in  the 
way  of  evidence,  but  you  must  consider  them  as  specimens  of 
evidence  ;  you  must  recollect  that  nothing  more  can  be  now 
attempted,  and  you  must  be  contented  with  expecting  to  find, 
as  you  certainly  will  find  hereafter,  when  you  come  to  read  the 
history  for  yourselves,  that  the  general  import  of  the  facts  has 
not  been  misrepresented,  and  that  the  theories  I  have  pro- 
posed might  have  been  very  amply  illustrated,  if  the  proper 
incidents  and  transactions  could  have  been  conveniently  ex- 
hibited to  your  consideration. 

VOL.   I.  31 


242  LECTURE  X. 

Thus,  first,  with  respect  to  the  effects  which  I  conceived 
could  not  but  result  from  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human 
mind. 

Of  this  the  proof  will  hereafter  appear  to  you  but  too  com- 
plete. It  will  be  even  visible  to  a  considerable  degree  in  the 
lectures  which  I  shall  have  next  to  deliver,  on  the  religious 
wars  ;  the  wars  that  accompanied  and  followed  the  progress 
of  the  Reformation.  But  in  the  mean  time,  I  can  only  refer 
you  to  the  testimony  of  the  historians  who  remark  upon  this 
particular  point,  while  writing  under  the  immediate  impression 
of  all  the  transactions  which  they  have  had  occasion  to  relate. 

I  shall  produce,  as  one  of  the  most  unobjectionable  that  can 
be  mentioned,  the  judgment  that  has  been  delivered  by  Rob- 
ertson. 

"  The  Roman  Catholics,"  says  Robertson,  "  as  their  sys- 
tem rested  on  the  decisions  of  an  infallible  judge,  never  doubt- 
ed that  truth  was  on  their  side,  and  openly  called  on  the  civil 
power  to  repel  the  impious  and  heretical  innovators,  who  had 
risen  up  against  it.  The  Protestants,  no  less  confident  that 
their  doctrine  was  well  founded,  required,  with  equal  ardor, 
the  princes  of  their  party  to  check  such  as  presumed  to  im- 
pugn or  to  oppose  it.  Luther,  Calvin,  Cranmer,  Knox,  the 
founders  of  the  reformed  church  in  their  respective  countries, 
inflicted,  as  far  as  they  had  power  and  opportunity,  the  same 
punishments,  which  were  denounced  against  their  own  disci- 
ples by  the  church  of  Rome,  upon  such  as  called  in  question 
any  article  of  their  creed.  To  their  followers,  and  perhaps 
their  opponents,  it  would  have  appeared  a  symptom  of  diffi- 
dence in  the  goodness  of  their  cause,  or  an  acknowledgment 
that  it  was  not  well  founded,  if  they  had  not  employed  in  its 
defence  all  those  means  which  it  was  supposed  truth  had  a 
right  to  employ." 

This  passage  from  Robertson  I  conceive  to  be,  in  the  main, 
just,  though  I  think  Luther  might  have  been  favorably  distin- 
guished from  Calvin  and  others.  There  are  passages  in  his 
writings,  with  regard  to  the  interference  of  the  magistrate  in 
religious  concerns,  that  do  him  honor  ;  but  he  was  favorably 
situated,  and  lived  not  to  see  the  temporal  sword  at  his  com- 
mand. He  was  never  tried. 

The  language  of  other  historians  is  similar  to  that  of  Rob- 


REFORMATION.  243 

ertson,  but  in  general  more  strong.  I  need  not  detain  my 
hearers  with  detailing  to  them  those  passages  in  their  account 
which  must  necessarily  be  met  with  in  the  course  of  any  regular 
perusal  of  their  narratives. 

I  shall,  however,  enumerate  a  few  instances  taken  from  dif- 
ferent periods  and  different  countries. 

One  of  the  most  early  and  noted  of  the  reformers  was  Huss. 
He  was  burned  to  death  by  the  Nominalists  at  the  council  of 
Constance.  But  it  must  be  observed,  that  when  he  had  been 
himself  u  dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority,"  he  had  persecuted 
the  Nominalists  to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  because  he  was 
himself  a  Realist.  These  terms  are  known  to  those  who  have 
engaged  in  metaphysical  inquiries,  and  to  those  only  ;  and  if 
explained,  would  show,  what  need  not  be  shown,  that  intoler- 
ance is  never  at  a  loss  for  materials. 

By  the  execution  of  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  the  he- 
roic Ziska  had  been  driven  into  such  paroxysms  of  indigna- 
tion and  gloom,  that  he  was  at  last  observed  by  Wenceslaus, 
and  encouraged  to  excite  his  countrymen  to  resist  and  punish 
these  unprincipled  persecutors  and  destroyers  of  their  fellow- 
creatures. 

But  a  few  years  afterwards  we  find  from  Mosheim  that  he 
himself  fell  upon  the  Beghards,  a  miserable  set  of  fanatics,  put- 
ting some  to  the  sword,  and  condemning  the  rest  to  the  flames, 
because  he  gave  full  credit,  probably  without  any  proper  exam- 
ination, to  the  charges  that  had  been  brought  against  them  of 
some  immoral  practices. 

Yet  must  Ziska  be  considered  as  a  hero,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  and  memorable  in  history  for  virtue,  as  well  as  tal- 
ents and  intrepidity. 

Calvin,  too,  must  be  thought  a  man  of  religion  and  goodness, 
according  to  his  own  melancholy  notions  of  religion  and  good- 
ness ;  yet  could  this  celebrated  reformer,  as  is  well  known, 
cause  Servetus  to  be  condemned  to  death  for  heresy  ;  and  be- 
cause the  unhappy  man  had  reiterated  his  shrieks,  when  con- 
demned, at  the  very  idea  of  the  fire,  in  which  he  was  to  perish, 
Calvin  could  find,  when  writing  in  the  retirement  of  his  closet, 
a  subject  not  only  for  his  comment,  but  his  censure  and  even 
his  ridicule  (at  least  his  contempt),  in  these  afflicting  agonies  of 
affrighted  nature. 


244  LECTUKE  X. 

Francis  the  First,  who  united  all  the  softer  virtues,  at  least,  to 
all  the  honorable  and  gallant  feelings  of  a  gentleman  and  a  sol- 
dier, could  however  declare,  in  a  public  assembly  (I  quote  the 
words  of  the  historian),  "that  if  one  of  his  hands  was  infected 
with  heresy,  he  would  cut  it  off  with  the  other,  and  would  not 
spare  even  his  own  children,  if  found  guilty  of  that  crime  ;  " 
and  immediately  after,  six  of  his  subjects  who  had  libelled  the 
Roman  church  were  publicly  burned,  with  circumstances,  says 
the  historian,  of  the  most  shocking  barbarity  attending  their  ex- 
ecution. 

Francis,  it  will  be  said,  was  no  religionist  ;  yet  he  lived  upon 
the  applause  of  men  generous  and  intrepid  like  himself ;  he 
prided  himself  upon  his  sincerity,  and  what  he  said  must  have 
been  the  genuine  effusion  of  his  own  mind,  and  equally  the 
echo  of  the  general  sentiment. 

Men  like  these  may  be  thought  warm  and  impetuous  in  their 
nature  ;  but  what  are  we  to  say  of  our  own  Sir  Thomas  More  ? 
What  man  so  amiable  in  his  manners,  so  invincible  in  his  integ- 
rity, so  gentle,  so  accomplished  ? 

Yet  does  this  man  take  his  place  among  the  persecutors  who 
disgrace  the  pages  of  history.  In  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  he 
leads  up  the  ranks,  where  Bonner  and  other  dreadful  men  are 
afterwards  so  distinguished. 

"  As  soon  as  More  came  into  favor,"  says  Burnet  in  his 
History  of  the  Reformation,  "  he  pressed  the  king  much  to  put 
the  laws  against  heretics  in  execution,  and  suggested  that  the 
court  of  Rome  would  be  more  wrought  upon  by  the  king's 
supporting  the  church  and  defending  the  faith  vigorously,  than 
by  threatenings." 

The  most  eminent  person  who  suffered  about  this  time  was 
Thomas  Bilney.  "  More,"  says  Burnet,  u  not  being  satisfied 
to  have  sent  the  writ  for  his  burning,  studied  also  to  defame 
him." 

In  December,  one  John  Tewksbury  was  taken  and  tried  in 
Sir  Thomas  More's  house,  where  sentence  was  given  against 
him  by  Stokesley,  the  chancellor's  assistant  in  this  work  of 
blood,  and  he  was  burned  in  Smithfield. 

"  James  Bainham,  a  gentleman  of  the  Temple,  was  carried," 
says  Burnet  (I  quote  his  words),  "to  the  Lord  Chancellor's 
house,  where  much  pains  were  taken  to  persuade  him  to 


REFORMATION.  245 

discover  such  as  he  knew  in  the  Temple  who  favored  the 
new  opinions  ;  but,  fair  means  not  prevailing,  More  made  him 
be  vvhipt  in  his  own  presence,  and  after  that  sent  him  to  the 
Tower,  where  he  looked  on  and  saw  him  put  to  the  rack  ;  at 
last  he  was  burnt  in  Smithfield."  ."  There  were  also  some 
others  burnt,"  says  Burnet,  "  a  little  before  this  time,  of  whom 
a  particular  account  could  not  be  recovered  by  Fox,  with  all 
his  industry.  But  with  Bainham,  More's  persecutions  ended, 
for  soon  after  he  laid  down  the  great  seal,  which  set  the  poor 
preachers  at  ease."  Such  are  the  words  of  Burnet. 

The  lectures  that  you  are  now  listening  to,  on  the  Reforma- 
tion, were  drawn  up  by  me  more  than  twenty  years  ago. 
Lately  there  has  been  published  a  Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More 
by  Sir  James  Mackintosh  ;  it  is  very  consoling  to  think  that 
Sir  James  has  been  able  to  rescue  the  fame  of  More  from  any 
charge  of  positive  cruelty,  and  even  from  materially  forgetting 
the  sentiments  of  mercy  and  justice,  which  nature  and  reflec- 
tion had  implanted  in  his  bosom.  More  says  positively,  in  his 
Apology,  "  Of  all  that  ever  came  in  my  hand  for  heresy,  as 
help  me  God,  never  had  any  of  them  any  stripe  or  stroke 
given  them,  so  much  as  a  fillip  on  the  forehead  ;  "  and  again, 
"that  he  never  did  examine  any  with  torments."  The  date  of 
the  work  in  which  More  denies  the  charge  was  1533,  "after 
he  had  given  over  the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor,"  and  was  in 
daily  expectation  of  being  committed  to  the  Tower.  The  book 
is  entitled,  The  Apology  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  Defenceless 
and  obnoxious  as  he  was,  no  one  disputed  its  truth.  Fox  was 
the  first  who,  thirty  years  afterwards,  ventured  to  oppose  it  in 
statements  which  we  know  to  be  in  some  respects  inaccurate. 
His  charges  are  copied  by  Burnet,  and,  with  considerable  hesi- 
tation, by  Strype.  Burnet  never  could  have  seen  Sir  Thomas 
More's  Apology.  As  More  died  to  maintain  his  veracity,  his 
assertion  must  be  believed. 

Of  all  the  reformers,  the  most  exemplary  for  the  mildness 
of  his  temperament,  was  Melancthon  ;  yet  Melancthon  could 
approve  and  justify  the  conduct  of  Calvin  in  his  atrocious  pun- 
ishment of  Servetus. 

What  man,  all  his  difficulties  considered,  more  estimable, 
at  least  what  man  less  fitted  by  nature  for  intolerance,  than 


246  LECTURE  X. 

Cranmer  ?  Yet  when  Joan  of  Kent  had  pronounced  some 
opinion,  which  was  judged  heretical,  concerning  the  mystery 
of  the  Incarnation,  she  was,  by  the  sentence  of  a  commission, 
where  Cranmer  presided,  adjudged  a  heretic,  and  "delivered 
over,  as  it  was  called,  to  the  secular  power  ;  "  that  is,  sent  to 
be  murdered  at  the  stake  by  fire. 

The  youth  of  the  king,  Edward  the  Sixth,  had  not  as  yet 
admitted  of  a  sufficient  progress  in  the  doctrines  of  intolerance. 
He  could  not  be  prevailed  on  to  sign  the  warrant.  u  He  thought 
it,"  says  the  historian,  "  a  piece  of  cruelty  too  like  that  which 
they  had  condemned  in  Papists,  to  burn  any  for  their  con- 
sciences." Cranmer  was  employed  to  reason  away,  if  possible, 
the  sentiments  of  mercy  and  justice.  He  argued  and  refined, 
and  produced  his  authorities  ;  "  but  his  reasons,"  says  Burnet, 
u  did  rather  silence  than  satisfy  the  young  king,  who  still  thought 
it  a  hard  thing  (as  in  truth  it  was)  to  proceed  so  severely  in 
such  cases  ;  so  he  set  his  hand  to  the  warrant  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  saying  to  Cranmer  that  if  he  did  wrong,  since  it  was  sub- 
mission to  his  authority,  he  should  answer  for  it  to  God."  The 
archbishop  paused  :  he  might  well  pause.  Some  effect  had 
been  produced  by  the  humane  terror  and  artless  sensibility  of 
his  youthful  sovereign,  and  the  horror  of  the  scene  that  was  to 
ensue  had  been  presented,  to  the  imagination  at  least,  if  not  to 
the  understanding  of  Cranmer.  The  sentence  was  delayed,  was 
suspended  for  a  year  ;  but  was  at  last  executed. 

It  is  surely  remarkable,  that,  under  such  favorable  circum- 
stances, the  principles  of  toleration  seem  never  to  have  occurred 
either  to  Cranmer  or  to  Ridley.  They  sent  for  the  unfortunate 
woman  immediately  after  the  conference  with  the  king,  not  to 
dismiss  her  with  their  advice,  but  to  persuade  her  to  recant ; 
to  save  her,  if  possible,  from  being  the  proper  object,  as  they 
conceived,  of  their  punishment.  Their  humanity  and  good 
sense,  for  they  possessed  both,  could  see  no  further  into  this 
subject  ;  and,  as  the  woman  was  not  less  attached  to  what  she 
thought  the  truth,  than  they  were  themselves,  it  is  probable 
that  they  conceived  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  put  her  to 
death. 

Two  years  after,  one  George  Vanpare,  being  accused  for 
some  heretical  opinion  concerning  another  of  the  mysteries, 


REFORMATION.  247 

was  condemned  in  the  same  manner,  and  burned  in  Smith- 
field. 

The  Papists  observed,  says  the  historian,  that  the  reformers 
were  only  against  burning  when  they  were  in  fear  of  it  them- 
selves. Cranmer  was  said  by  them  to  have  consented  both  to 
the  death  of  Lambert  and  Anne  Askew.  These  instances  were 
appealed  to  in  Queen  Mary's  time  to  justify  a  retaliation  of  per- 
secution ;  to  justify  a  repetition  of  proceedings  that  are  as  de- 
grading for  their  stupidity  as  they  are  horrible  for  their  cruelty. 
It  is  even  contended,  though  unnecessarily,  that  Edward  the 
Sixth  was  himself  thinking  only  of  the  eternal  happiness  of  the 
unhappy  woman  who  was  to  be  burned,  which  he  thought  would 
be  endangered  if  she  died  a  heretic  ;  and  that  he  was  not 
thinking  of  her  earthly  sufferings.  But  if  so,  if  even  his  gentle 
and  youthful  nature  could  be  insensible  to  the  claims  of  human- 
ity in  its  practical  application  to  this  life,  how  much  stronger  is 
the  general  reasoning  now  insisted  upon. 

Now,  to  forget  for  a  moment  all  the  pages  of  ecclesiastical 
history  ;  to  mention  neither  the  persecutions  of  the  Christians 
by  the  Heathens,  nor  of  the  Christians  by  each  other  ;  not  to 
anticipate  what  remains  yet  to  be  told  of  Philip  the  Second  and 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  or  of  minor  instances  of  persecution,  such 
as  the  deprivation  of  benefices,  and  the  imprisonment  and  exile 
of  each  sect  in  its  turn,  let  the  student  pause  and  meditate  on 
the  nature  of  such  men  as  have  been  mentioned.  Pliny,  Louis 
the  Ninth  (before  the  Reformation),  Melancthon,  and  Cranmer, 
and  Ridley  (after  the  Reformation).  If  there  be  any  charac- 
ters in  history  that  in  every  other  respect  but  this  of  intoler- 
ance are  the  ornaments  of  their  nature,  they  are  these.  If 
these  are  not  favorable  specimens  of  mankind,  none  can  be 
found  :  vigorous  in  their  understandings,  cultivated  in  their 
minds,  gentle  in  their  nature,  conversant  with  the  world  and  its 
business,  refined,  and  pure,  and  perfect,  as  far  as  in  this  sublu- 
nary state  perfection  can  be  found.  These  are  certainly  most 
awful  lessons. 

I  cannot  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  different  degrees  of 
intolerance  which  different  sects  have  exhibited.  It  is  possible, 
it  might  be  naturally  expected,  that  the  Protestant  would  be  less 
deeply  criminal  than  the  Roman  Catholic,  or  rather  the  Papist ; 
but  I  cannot  now  stay  to  appreciate  this  relative  criminality,  or 


248  LECTURE  X. 

point  out  its  causes.  I  speak  of  the  guilt  of  all,  of  man- 
kind, of  human  nature,  of  the  inherent  intolerance  of  the  human 
heart,  be  the  bosom  in  which  it  beats,  of  whatever  character  or 
description,  Pagan  or  Christian,  Protestant  or  Roman  Cath- 
olic. 

Much  improvement  has  no  doubt  taken  place  in  society  on 
this  momentous  subject  ;  much  since  the  first  breaking  out  of 
the  Reformation. 

As  in  the  solitude  of  the  Prophet  Elijah,  the  Lord  passed 
by  and  a  great  and  strong  wind  rent  the  mountains,  but  he 
was  not  in  the  wind  ;  and  after  the  wind  an  earthquake,  but 
the  Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake  ;  and  after  the  earth- 
quake a  fire,  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire  ;  and  after 
the  fire  a  still  small  voice,  and  the  Lord  was  in  that  voice  ; 
so  in  the  solitude  of  the  human  mind,  from  the  moment  that 
the  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  had  reached  it,  and  the  Lord  had 
passed  by,  the  visitations  of  intolerance  have  succeeded,  and 
there  has  been  the  dispute  of  the  polemic,  and  the  embat- 
tled field  of  the  warrior,  and  the  stake  of  the  persecutor, 
the  wind,  and  the  earthquake,  and  the  fire,  and  the  Lord 
was  not  in  these  ;  and  at  last  the  mild  and  benevolent  pre- 
cepts of  the  gospel,  the  still  small  voice,  has  been  slowly 
heard,  and  it  is  perceived  that  the  Lord  is  in  that  voice. 
Blessed  be  the  God  of  mercy,  that  thus  far  an  advancement 
in  religion,  a  new  reformation,  has  been  at  length  accom- 
plished !  It  is  no  longer  supposed  that  to  persecute  is  to 
please  God  ;  the  rights  of  conscience  are  acknowledged  at 
least,  and  there  is  here  some  hope  and  some  victory  over  the 
powers  of  darkness. 

The  misfortune  still  is,  that  men  honor  the  doctrines  of  tol- 
eration with  their  lips,  while  they  seem  not  aware  that  their 
heart  is  far  from  them.  The  principles  of  intolerance,  that  is, 
the  principles  of  their  nature,  still  maintain  their  hold,  though 
they  may  be  awed,  and  tamed,  and  civilized,  and  reduced 
to  assume  forms  less  frightful  and  destructive  in  these  later 
ages. 

Uncharitable  insinuations,  mutual  accusations,  mutual  con- 
tempt and  ignorance  of  the  arguments  and  tenets  of  each 
other,  these,  in  both  the  superior  and  inferior  sects,  have 
supplied  the  place  of  the  virulence  and  fury  of  earlier  times  ; 


REFORMATION.  249 

and  unnecessary  exclusions,  penal  laws,  and  civil  disabilities, 
are  now  the  milder  representatives  of  their  horrible  predeces- 
sors, the  dungeon  and  the  stake. 

These  paragraphs  were  written  twenty  years  ago,  and  a 
most  important  amelioration  of  the  situation  of  inferior  sects 
has  been  since  accomplished. 

I  must  now  recur  to  the  second  observation  which  I  pro- 
posed to  your  consideration.  It  was  this,  not  only  that  dis- 
putes would  necessarily  arise  from  the  particular  constitution 
of  the  human  mind,  but  that,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  evi- 
dence on  which  points  of  doctrine  must  necessarily  rest,  they 
never  could  be  expected  to  appear  exactly  terminated  ;  that 
this  evidence  could  never,  as  in  mathematical  subjects,  be 
demonstrative  ;  that  it  might  be  fitted  to  convince  a  candid 
inquirer  after  truth,  but  could  never  bear  down  the  mind  and 
insuperably  extort  conviction.  The  history  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, like  all  prior  ecclesiastical  history,  confirms  this  remark. 

No  efforts  of  princes  or  divines  could  ever  produce  a  uni- 
formity of  religion.  The  contrariety  of  opinion  even  between 
Luther  and  Zuinglius,  the  great  Swiss  reformer,  was  found 
irremediable.  In  vain  were  these  venerable  men  (surely  no 
ordinary  inquirers  after  truth)  brought  together  to  accommo- 
date their  differences,  and  accompanied  by  the  most  eminent 
of  their  followers.  u  After  a  conference  of  four  days,  their 
dissension,"  says  Moshiem,  "  concerning  the  manner  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  eucharist  still  remained,  nor  could 
either  of  the  contending  parties  be  persuaded  to  abandon  or 
even  to  modify  their  opinion  of  the  matter." —  (Mosh.  vol.  iv. 
p.  76).  "  The  real  fact  was,  that  Luther  even  hazarded  (as 
far  as  human  conduct  could  hazard)  the  success  of  the  Refor- 
mation itself,  because  he  could  not  be  brought  to  comprehend 
within  the  general  confederacy  the  followers  of  Zuinglius  and 
Bucer."  —  (Vol.  iv.  p.  98).  Again  ;  —  At  the  diet  of  Augs- 
burg, the  Reformers  exhibited  the  articles  of  their  faith,  to 
which  the  Romanists  replied.  "  Various  conferences,"  says 
Mosheim,  "  were  held  between  persons  of  eminence,  piety, 
and  learning  ;  nothing  was  omitted  that  might  have  the  least 
tendency  to  calm  the  animosity,  heal  the  divisions,  and  unite 
the  hearts  of  the  contending  parties,  but  all  to  no  purpose, 
since  the  difference,"  says  the  historian,  "  between  their 

VOL.  i.  32 


250  LECTURE  X. 

opinions  was  too  considerable  and  of  too  much  importance  to 
admit  of  a  reconciliation."  —  (Vol.  iv.  p.  96). 

It  is  possible  that  the  difference  might  be  considerable  and 
important,  as  the  historian  here  describes,  but  the  result  would 
have  been  the  same  had  it  been  otherwise. 

Again  ;  —  The  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  published  a  sys- 
tem, called  the  Interim,  which  he  fondly  imagined,  as  being 
a  medium  between  "the  two  parties,  might  be  acceded  toby 
both. 

The  pope  was  surprised  that  a  man  who  knew  the  world 
like  Charles,  should  indulge  for  a  moment  so  vain  a  delusion  ; 
and  observed,  that  it  was  unnecessary  to  disturb  himself  about 
the  success  of  a  project,  which,  not  belonging  to  any  party, 
would  be  neglected  by  all,  and  soon  forgotten  :  and  such 
indeed  was  the  event. 

Again  ; —  "  At  a  conference  at  Worms,  between  persons  of 
learning  and  piety,  Eccius  and  the  excellent  Melancthon  (vol. 
iv.  p.  107)  disputed  during  the  space  of  three  days  ;  but  this 
conference,"  says  Mosheim,  u  produced  no  other  effect  than 
a  reference  to  a  general  council." 

The  student,  as  he  peruses  the  volumes  of  Mosheim  on  the 
progress  of  the  Reformation  through  different  countries,  will 
see  instances  like  these,  only  multiplied  as  he  proceeds  ;  and 
it  will  be  natural  for  him  to  conclude  that  a  fate  not  very  dis- 
similar will  attend  the  efforts  of  learned  men,  whenever  they 
are  employed,  not  in  contending,  as  were  the  first  reformers, 
for  the  opening  of  the  Bible  and  the  freedom  of  religious 
opinion,  but  for  the  particular  doctrines  by  which  their  sects 
and  churches  are  distinguished.  An  unprejudiced  inquirer 
may  be  convinced  by  their  reasonings,  but  their  reasonings 
will  be  lost  upon  each  other.  The  celebrated  History  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  by  Father  Paul,  may  be  referred  to  ;  the 
book  is  now  chiefly  valuable  on  this  very  account.  Let  the 
student  open  it  wherever  he  chooses,  let  him  consider  the 
nature  of  such  subjects,  and  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  ; 
the  abstruseness  of  the  one,  and  the  manner  in  which  the 
operations  of  the  other  are  always  prompted,  or  at  least  modi- 
fied, by  the  influence  of  the  feelings  ;  and  he  will  then  no  lon- 
ger, like  ihe  vulgar,  stand  amazed  to  see  that  the  learned  and 
the  wise  can  dispute  so  much  and  decide  so  little. 


REFORMATION.  251 

My  third  observation  was,  that  it  might  be  expected  that  the 
disputes  of  mankind  would  immediately  involve  them  in  the 
most  inextricable  labyrinths  of  metaphysical  subtilety,  and  that 
most  serious  evils  must  inevitably  be  the  consequence. 

Before  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  the  religious  animosities 
of  mankind  had  always  turned  on  speculative  points  of  doctrine  ; 
they  did  so  afterwards. 

The  first  reformers  had  scarcely  attacked  with  success  such 
doctrines  and  corruptions  of  the  church  of  Rome  as  were  more 
or  less  destructive  of  morality  and  real  religion,  but  they 
plunged  into  discussions  of  the  most  mysterious  and  impene- 
trable nature.  This  will  be  but  too  obvious  to  those  who  read 
even  the  history  of  the  Reformation  ;  it  will  be  only  the  more 
obvious  to  those  who  make  themselves  acquainted  with  the 
theological  writings  of  the  reformers. 

The  celebrated  book  written  by  Father  Paul,  the  History  of 
the  Council  of  Trent,  may  be  again  referred  to ;  it  may  serve 
as  a  general  specimen  of  this  part  of  the  subject.  It  may  not 
be  possible  to  read  the  whole  of  it,  but  of  the  eight  books 
which  constitute  the  work,  the  second  more  particularly,  and 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighth,  should  at  least  be  read.  Observa- 
tion should  be  made  on  the  nature  of  those  Protestant  tenets, 
which  were  drawn  out  for  examination,  or  rather  for  condemna- 
tion by  the  Roman  Catholic  Fathers.  Their  abstruse  nature 
will  be  very  apparent,  and  the  reader  cannot  but  be  reminded 
of  the  controversial  discussions  that  he  has  before  seen  in  eccle- 
siastical history. 

The  tendency,  therefore,  of  theological  inquiries  and  disquisi- 
tions to  run  into  the  speculations  of  metaphysical  divinity  is 
thus  visible,  both  before  and  after  the  Reformation,  and  may  now 
be  considered  as  quite  a  characteristic  of  the  human  mind. 

I  observed,  too,  that  disputes  of  this  nature  were  not  the 
more  likely,  on  account  of  their  real  difficulty,  to  be  treated 
with  calmness,  and  pronounced  upon  with  hesitation  ;  but  that 
the  contrary  would  be  the  event  ;  and  that  these  very  points  of 
difficulty  were  those  for  which  men  would  contend  with  the 
greater  fury,  and  on  which  they  would  decide  with  the  more 
ready  dogmatism. 

Now,  on  looking  at  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  abun- 
dant evidence  will  be  found  to  substantiate  this  assertion. 


252  LECTURE  X. 

By  whatever  mysterious  abstractions,  by  whatever  controver- 
sial subtileties,  by  whatever  unaccountable  observances  and  cer- 
emonies the  faith  of  any  sect  was  distinguished,  followers  were 
never  wanting  to  glory  in  those  particular  characteristics  of  dis- 
cipline or  doctrine  ;  for  the  sake  of  them  to  submit  to  any  pri- 
vations, to  march  to  battle,  to  languish  in  imprisonment,  or  to 
expire  in  the  flames. 

The  great  orator  of  Rome  was  compelled  to  sigh  over  the 
inanity  of  all  human  contentions.  Something  of  a  similar  sen- 
timent may,  perhaps,  pass  across  the  mind,  when  we  survey  the 
volumes  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  monument  of  the  unavail- 
ing warfare  of  the  learning  and  ability  of  the  times  ;  but  we  may 
sigh  more  deeply  when  we  consider,  that  among  the  thousands 
and  the  ten  thousands,  that  suffered  persecution  and  death, 
most  of  them  were  guilty  only  of  some  supposed  error  in  spec- 
ulative doctrine ;  of  taking  the  literal,  or  figurative  sense,  of 
some  passages  in  Scripture  ;  of  interpreting  a  text  in  a  manner 
different  from  its  accepted  sense  ;  or  of  drawing,  from  a  com- 
parison of  several  texts,  a  different  conclusion  from  that  which 
they  were  understood  to  warrant.  The  real  presence,  in  the 
Eucharist,  for  instance,  was  the  great  point  on  which  the  lives 
of  men  depended.  The  student  should  by  all  means  turn  to 
Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  ;  let  him  look  at  the  doctrines,  for  the 
affirmation  or  denial  of  which,  men,  and  even  women,  were 
thrown  into  the  flames  ;  particularly,  let  him  look  at  the  dispu- 
tation held  before  Henry  the  Eighth  ;  and  again  by  Cranmer, 
Latimer,  and  Ridley,  at  Oxford  :  he  will  see,  and,  if  he  is  inex- 
perienced in  such  subjects,  he  will  see  with  astonishment,  the 
preposterous  manner  in  which  logic  and  metaphysics  were  made 
the  ceremonies  that  preceded  the  execution  and  agonies  of 
these  eminent  martyrs.  Let  him  consider,  again,  what  were 
the  reasons  for  which  Cranmer  himself  had  before  tied  his  vic- 
tims to  the  stake. 

I  do  not  detail  the  points  upon  which  the  prelate  disputed, 
or  the  reasons  for  which  he  put  an  unhappy  woman,  and  an 
inoffensive  foreigner  to  death.  They  are  to  be  found,  the  first 
in  Fox,  the  second  in  Burnet.  I  cannot  detail  to  you  particu- 
lars of  this  nature. 

Indeed,  one  of  the  difficulties  I  encounter  at  this  moment, 


REFORMATION.  253 

and  in  many  other  parts  of  this  lecture,  is  the  impropriety  of 
quoting,  in  any  manner,  however  concise,  any  portion  of  the 
records,  or  books,  to  which  I  allude.  The  reason  is  this  :  — 
In  the  course  of  such  transactions,  as  I  have  to  mention,  the 
most  mysterious  terms  of  our  religion  were  brought  forward, 
examined,  analyzed,  and  made  the  subjects  of  the  most  subtile 
and  perplexing  disquisitions  and  disputes.  This  was,  indeed, 
the  very  manner  in  which  the  piety  of  our  ancestors  unfortu- 
nately displayed  itself  during  these  singular  ages.  A  due  sense 
of  religion  with  ws,  takes  a  different,  and  surely  a  more  reason- 
able direction  ;  and  the  awful  reserve  which  it  prescribes,  in 
every  public  allusion  to  such  sacred  subjects,  and  to  the  mys- 
teries of  our  faith,  the  Incarnation  for  instance,  it  can  be  no  wish 
of  mine,  even  for  a  moment,  or,  however  innocently,  to  violate 
or  offend.  But  to  return.  Men,  it  will  be  said,  are  not  now 
tormented,  or  deprived  of  life,  for  metaphysical  distinctions  in 
divinity.  It  may  be  so  :  we  shall,  however,  do  well  to  note, 
as  I  have  before  observed,  what  the  nature  of  the  human  mind 
really  is.  Thus  much  may  be  certainly  affirmed,  that  there 
never  was,  and  there  never  will  be,  a  time,  when  the  multitude 
will  not  suppose  that  all  these  questions  are  perfectly  intelligi- 
ble. The  real  and  matured  scholar,  indeed,  may  hesitate, 
while  he  assents  to  particular  points,  but  the  multitude  have  no 
difficulties  :  the  mazes  which  look  intricate  and  dark  to  the  man 
of  sense  and  learning,  are  to  them  without  a  thorn,  and  even  ar- 
rayed in  all  the  sunshine  of  heaven. 

Such  was,  indeed,  the  spectacle  sometimes  displayed  during 
the  progress,  and  long  after  and  before  the  Reformation.  Eras- 
mus might  distinguish  and  refine,  the  excellent  Chillingworth 
might  debate  and  decide,  decide  and  debate  again,  and  lose 
and  disquiet  himself  in  the  shifting  and  uncertain  shadows 
of  his  learning.  St.  Augustin  might  confess  with  what  labor, 
with  what  sighs,  the  truth  could  be  at  last  elicited.  No  such 
unintelligible  embarrassments  disquieted  the  vulgar,  or  men 
who  were  like  the  vulgar  ;  to  be  dogmatic,  it  was  only  neces- 
sary then,  as  it  is  now,  to  be  sufficiently  ignorant  or  unfeeling  ; 
and  Europe  everywhere  exhibited  a  proof,  which  will  on  every 
occasion  be  repeated,  that  the  mass  of  mankind,  though  they 
understand  not  the  controversies  of  theologians,  can  easily  be 
inflamed  about  them,  can  readily  seize  upon  badges  of  dis- 


254  LECTURE  X. 

tinction,  and  invent  terms  of  reproach  for  the  purposes  of 
mutual  hostility  ;  find  no  difficulty  in  associating  with  their 
own  vindictive  passions  the  cause  of  the  Most  High  ;  and  in 
this  frightful  state  of  presumption  and  blindness,  stand  pre- 
pared for  any  outrage  that  can  be  proposed  to  them,  and  bid 
defiance  alike  to  every  expostulation  of  reason,  and  precept  of 
religion. 

It  is  on  these  accounts  that  the  statesmen  of  the  world  are 
always  so  justly  alarmed,  when  they  foresee  the  interference  of 
the  religious  principle  in  the  concerns,  over  which  they  pre- 
side ;  and  the  true  Christian  is  more  than  ever  compelled  to 
examine  the  religious  spirit,  and  the  practical  precepts  of  any 
denomination  of  Christians,  by  the  great  criterion,  of  their  con- 
sistence with  morality  ;  and  if  he  once  discerns  that  this 
spirit,  and  these  precepts,  oppose  themselves  to  our  moral 
feelings,  to  that  great  religion  which  the  Almighty  has,  from 
the  first,  written  upon  the  hearts  of  all  men,  that  great  original 
code  of  mercy  and  justice,  to  which  our  Saviour  himself  so 
constantly  appeals  in  his  parables  and  discourses  ;  if  he  once 
discovers  that  there  are  any  speculative,  or  practical  con- 
clusions, which  clash  with  these  great  laws  of  the  Moral 
Governor  of  the  world,  such  conclusions  will  need  with  him 
no  further  refutation  ;  he  will  be  at  no  loss  to  determine  from 
their  very  nature,  that  they  must  be  derived  from  some  mis- 
apprehension, or  some  exaggeration,  or  some  exclusive  con- 
sideration of  particular  passages  in  Scripture,  and  that,  as- 
suredly, they  are  not  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  revela- 
tion. 

I  have,  in  my  lecture  of  yesterday,  next  observed,  that  great 
evils  were  to  be  expected  from  the  mixture  that  would  neces- 
sarily take  place,  of  the  politics  of  the  world  with  the  more 
spiritual  concerns  of  the  religious  principle  ;  and  more  particu- 
larly, that  the  question  of  the  ecclesiastical  patronage  could  not 
fail  to  produce  the  most  afflicting  animosities,  and  irremediable 
confusion. 

These  observations  will  be  found  but  too  well  illustrated  by 
those  parts  of  the  history  of  Europe,  which  we  are  next  to 
advert  to.  To  prove  the  truth  of  them  would  be  to  relate 
the  transactions  which  you  are  now  immediately  to  read. 
The  civil  and  religious  wars  in  France,  the  wars  in  Germany, 


REFORMATION.  255 

down  to  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  the  wars  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries, and  even  in  our  own  island  ;  everywhere  you  will  see 
the  ordinary  motives  of  contest  and  ambition,  acting  and  re- 
acted upon,  by  the  religious  principle,  and  all  the  more  theo- 
retical causes  for  contention  and  rage,  continually  exasperated 
and  perpetuated  by  the  more  practical  considerations  of  the 
disposal  of  the  ecclesiastical  revenues. 

I  need  not  further  insist  on  this  point  ;  the  history  will  show 
you,  what  you  may  already  very  easily  conceive. 

I  am  now  arrived  at  the  last  of  the  observations  which  I 
proposed  to  your  consideration,  —  That  to  compensate  for 
these  evils,  particular  benefits  might  probably  result  to  man- 
kind from  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Reformation. 

On  recurring  to  the  history,  and  to  the  facts,  these  benefits 
will  be  found  such  as  might  have  been  expected  ;  such  as  have 
been  already  described  as  likely  to  ensue.  The  Bible  was 
opened  ;  those  particular  pretensions  and  doctrines  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  were  so  destructive  of  the 
morality  and  religion  of  mankind,  were  successfully  combated  ; 
the  chain  of  authority  was  broken,  and  the  appeal  was  trans- 
ferred, from  popes  and  general  councils,  to  the  Scriptures 
themselves. 

Such  were  the  immediate,  the  invaluable  blessings  that  re- 
sulted. But  a  distinction  is  now  to  be  made  between  those 
good  effects  that  more  immediately,  and  those  that  more  re- 
motely followed  the  Reformation  ;  between  those  that  Luther 
and  the  first  reformers  meant  to  produce,  and  saw  produced, 
and  those  which  they  did  not  see,  and  might  not  perhaps  mean 
to  produce. 

Now  the  first  we  have  already  mentioned,  —  the  opening  of 
the  Bible,  —  the  establishment  of  a  purer  faith.  We  must 
therefore  next  advert  to  the  latter.  The  first  reformers,  while 
they  were  struggling  to  deliver  themselves  and  mankind  from 
the  authority  of  the  church  of  Rome,  asserted  the  right  of 
private  judgment. 

When  this  emancipation  from  the  authority  of  the  pope 
was  once  effected,  it  was  natural  for  them  to  lay  down,  in 
their  turn,  what  they  believed  to  be  the  doctrines  of  religious 
truth.  It  was  natural  for  them  to  conceive,  that  those  who 
opposed  their  new  creeds,  so  evidently  deduced,  as  they 


256  LECTURE  X. 

thought,  from  the  sacred  Scriptures,  misused,  and  dangerously 
misused,  that  right  of  private  judgment,  which  had  thus  been 
procured.  It  was  natural  for  them  to  call  for  the  interposition 
of  legislative  authority,  for  the  assistance  of  the  secular  arm, 
and  to  endeavour  to  become,  in  their  turn,  a  new  church  of 
Rome  ;  though  certainly  very  distinguishable  in  religious  doc- 
trine, and  in  moral  practice. 

But  when  the  right  of  private  judgment  had  been,  by  the 
reformers,  once  happily  exerted,  it  was  in  vain  to  prescribe 
limits  to  its  activity.  A  spirit  of  inquiry  had  arisen,  and  who 
was  to  stay  its  progress  ?  Who  was  to  define  the  boundaries 
within  which  the  human  heart  was  to  hope  and  fear,  — -  within 
which  the  human  understanding  was  to  doubt  and  discover  ? 
The  earthly  means,  by  which  the  second  emancipation  of  the 
human  mind  was  effected,  this  second  emancipation  which 
the  first  reformers  did  not  mean  to  produce,  are  sufficiently 
evident.  They  were  found  in  the  revival  of  learning  and  the 
invention  of  printing  :  these  secured  the  victory  that  had  been 
obtained  over  the  Roman  see.  The  reformers  had  every- 
where encouraged  the  study  of  the  Greek  language,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  texts  of  the  New  Testament  was  thus  brought 
within  the  comprehension  of  the  more  intelligent  part  of  socie- 
ty. Men  of  education  (though  laymen)  could  no  longer  dis- 
tinguish between  themselves  and  their  spiritual  teachers.  With 
the  same  longings  after  immortality,  the  same  terrors  of  the 
future,  the  same  revelation  proposed  to  them,  and  the  means 
of  interpreting  its  doctrines  and  its  precepts  now  common  to 
both,  no  further  distinction  remained  between  them,  —  be- 
tween the  layman  and  the  priest,  —  none  but  that  of  superior- 
ity of  learning  in  the  clerical  character,  or  greater  purity  of 
manners  ;  no  further  spiritual  influence  but  such  as  did  and 
ought  to  belong  to  more  regular  and  extensive  erudition,  and 
more  settled  and  anxious  piety. 

The  action  and  reaction  of  this  freedom  of  private  judgment 
has  been  productive  of  the  most  salutary  consequences  both 
to  the  clergy  and  the  laity.  The  two  characters  have  been 
more  assimilated  to  each  other,  materially  to  the  benefit  of 
both.  This  is  that  silent  and  still  more  important  reformation 
which  slowly  succeeded  to  the  more  visible  and  to  the  im- 
portant reformation  in  the  days  of  Luther,  of  Calvin,  and  of 


REFORMATION.  257 

Cranmer  ;  and  it  is  not  the  less  real  because  it  may  or  may  not 
stand  acknowledged  in  the  creeds  or  legislative  acts  of  the  dif- 
ferent churches  or  states  of  Christendom. 

But  the  same  freedom  of  the  mind  which  had  been  success- 
fully asserted  by  the  reformers  in  religious  subjects,  extended 
itself  afterwards  to  every  department  of  human  inquiry.  The 
nature  and  different  provinces  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power 
were  examined  and  ascertained  ;  and  the  temporal  as  well  as 
spiritual  concerns  of  mankind  were  delivered  from  their  long 
and  injurious  bondage. 

The  world  of  science,  too,  was  now  thrown  open,  and  men 
had  no  longer  to  be  checked  in  their  curiosity  or  debarred  the 
exercise  of  their  natural  faculties,  while  investigating  the  laws 
of  nature,  by  the  terrors  of  the  Inquisition  or  the  disapproba- 
tion of  their  temporal  and  spiritual  rulers.  The  same  right  of 
private  judgment  came  at  length  to  be  exercised  on  the  more 
abstruse  subjects  of  speculative  inquiry,  on  the  original  princi- 
ples of  metaphysics  and  morals.  Even  the  evidences  of  reli- 
gion itself  became  subjects  of  discussion,  and  they  who  had 
not  the  means  of  investigating  truth  themselves,  the  illiterate 
and  the  busy,  might  be  consoled  by  perceiving  that  such  means 
were  amply  in  the  possession  of  others,  and  that  belief  in  au- 
thority might  now  be  reasonable,  when  no  authority  was  evi- 
dently acknowledged  but  the  authority  of  truth. 

Lastly,  it  must  be  observed,  that,  although  the  religious  prin- 
ciple mingled  itself  most  unhappily  with  the  temporal  politics 
of  Europe,  its  interference  was  in  some  respects  productive  of 
the  most  permanent  and  beneficial  effects.  The  reformers, 
through  all  their  different  varieties  of  opinion,  were  necessa- 
rily (till  they  became  themselves  the  established  sect)  the 
friends  of  religious  liberty.  But  with  the  rights  of  religious 
liberty,  the  rights  of  civil  liberty  were  naturally  connected  ; 
the  cause,  therefore,  of  civil  freedom  was  always  the  cause  of 
the  reformers  ;  a  cause  most  dear  to  them  while  they  were  the 
inferior  sect,  and  more  congenial  to  them,  whenever  they  be- 
came the  superior. 

It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  salutary  influence  that  came 
tlius  to  operate  upon  the  different  constitutions  of  civil  polity 
in  Europe,  particularly  in  our  own  island.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  that  had  it  not  been  for  this  animating  spark,  the  civil 

VOL.   i.  33 


258  LECTURE  X. 

rights  of  mankind,  on  the  decline  of  the  feudal  system,  would 
have  expired  under  the  increasing  power  which  the  sovereign 
at  that  critical  period  everywhere  obtained. 

The  Reformation,  when  considered  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  all 
these  points  of  view,  may  be  reasonably  represented  as  one 
of  the  greatest  events,  or  rather  as  the  greatest  event,  in  modern 
history.  To  the  Reformation  we  owe,  not  only  the  destruction 
of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  thraldom  of  the  papacy,  the 
great  evil  with  which  Europe  had  to  struggle,  but  to  the  Ref- 
ormation we  may  be  said  to  owe  all  the  improvements  which 
afterwards  took  place,  not  only  in  religion,  but  in  legislation, 
in  science,  and  in  our  knowledge  of  the  faculties  and  opera- 
tions of  the  human  mind  ;  in  other  words,  all  that  can  dis- 
tinguish the  most  enlightened  from  the  darkest  periods  of  hu- 
man society. 

I  must  now  proceed  to  mention  such  books  and  treatises  as 
may,  I  think,  be  sufficient  to  give  proper  information  with  re- 
spect to  this  memorable  struggle  for  the  purity  of  religion  and 
the  freedom  of  the  human  mind.  But  I  must  observe,  in  the 
first  place,  that  on  the  subject  of  the  Reformation,  above  all 
others,  it  is  not  for  me  to  offer  any  limits  to  the  ardor  of  the 
student  or  the  extent  of  his  inquiries.  Endeavouring,  how- 
ever, as  usual,  to  make  what  I  recommend,  as  practicable  as 
possible,  and  to  mention  as  few,  not  as  many  books,  as  the  sub- 
ject admits  of,  I  am  inclined  to  propose  to  the  student  to  read 
the  history  of  the  Reformation,  first,  in  Robertson's  Charles 
the  Fifth  ;  next,  the  history  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  in  Coxe's 
Austria  ;  next,  that  of  the  Reformation  in  Mr.  Roscoe's  Leo 
the  Tenth  ;  and,  lastly,  the  same  subject  in  the  fifty-fourth 
chapter  of  Gibbon.  After  these  have  been  considered,  I  would 
have  him  turn  to  Mosheim,  and  read  the  introduction  and  first 
four  chapters  that  relate  to  the  Reformation  in  the  fourth  vol- 
ume of  our  English  edition.  He  may  then  begin  at  the  second 
part,  and  read  the  history  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
Churches  ;  turning  afterwards  to  the  first  part  to  consider, 
more  particularly  at  the  close  of  it,  the  history  of  the  Romish 
church. 

He  will  then,  I  conceive,  have  a  very  adequate  idea  of  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  first  rise  of  the  Reformation,  of  the 
events  that  attended  its  progress,  and  of  its  consequences  ; 
nor  is  the  course  of  reading  thus  proposed  long. 


REFORMATION.  259 

Each  of  the  writers  mentioned  have  their  separate  and  differ- 
ent merits,  and  you  will  find  the  original  authors  referred  to, 
and  all  the  respectable  writers  on  the  subject  mentioned,  if  you 
choose  to  weigh  the  merits  of  the  modern  historians  I  have 
recommended,  or  of  those  who  were  themselves  actors  in  these 
memorable  scenes. 

In  the  general  subject  of  the  Reformation  there  are  three 
great  divisions.  The  causes  that  led  to  it ;  the  events  that 
attended  its  progress  ;  the  consequences  which  resulted  from 
it.  I  do  not  detain  you  with  commenting  here  upon  topics 
which  you  will  find  regularly  considered  in  the  writers  'I  have 
referred  to.  But  the  last  is  the  most  extensive.  Effects  have 
been  produced  so  many  and  so  important  upon  the  morals 
and  the  manners,  upon  the  arts,  literature,  sciences,  knowl- 
edge, religion,  and  politics  of  Europe,  that  properly  to  display 
them,  would  require  a  work  exclusively  appropriated  to  the 
subject,  and  for  which  no  ability  or  information  would  be 
entirely  adequate.  Some  notion  of  the  nature  of  such  a  subject 
may  be  formed  not  only  from  the  writings  I  have  mentioned, 
but  more  particularly  from  a  work  which  I  may  now  mention, 
the  Prize  Essay  of  Mr.  Villars,  on  the  Spirit  and  Influence  of 
the  Reformation  by  Luther.  The  reader  will  find  the  author 
a  man  of  talents,  and  soon  perceive  that  he  is  a  Frenchman. 
The  essay  is  written,  as  might  be  expected,  not  in  a  manner 
sufficiently  composed  and  modest,  but  from  the  midst  of 
those  imposing  views  and  sweeping  assertions  which  are  so 
grateful  to  French  authors,  when  they  write  exclusively  on 
any  particular  subject,  and  which  are  so  justly  troublesome 
and  embarrassing  to  the  more  natural  mind  of  an  English 
reader,  some  rational  views  may  be  after  all  selected,  and  the 
student  will,  on  the  whole,  find  his  mind,  by  the  perusal  of  the 
essay,  enlarged  and  enriched,  and  far  better  enabled  to  form 
his  own  judgment  than  before.  Mr.  Villars  lays  down  the 
happy  effects  of  the  Reformation  on  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  liberty  of  thought,  in  the  most  unqualified 
manner,  and  he  may  be  compared  in  these  points  with  some 
of  our  own  English  writers,  Gibbon  and  Roscoe,  whom  I  have 
mentioned,  and  who  think  very  differently  on  this  particular 
part  of  the  subject.  The  great  divisions  of  the  essay  are, 
the  influence  of  the  Reformation,  first,  on  the  political  situation 


260  LECTURE  X. 

of  the  states  of  Europe  ;  and,  secondly,  on  the  progress  of 
knowledge. 

The  first  will,  I  think,  be  found  of  most  value.  There  is  a 
good  life  of  Luther  prefixed,  borrowed  from  Robertson  and 
others,  and  an  appendix  which  contains  a  sketch  of  ecclesias- 
tical history,  and  which,  as  a  sketch,  seems  able,  and  on  the 
whole,  may  not  be  without  its  use.  The  section  which  treats 
of  Reformations  in  general  is  the  worst  part  of  the  whole. 
I  see  in  Mr.  Hallam's  last  work  that  he  does  not  think  Villars 
an  original  inquirer. 

Thus  much  for  the  history  of  the  Reformation  in  general, 
and  here  I  might  close  all  further  disquisition  on  these  objects 
of  our  inquiry.  But  an  English  student  will  naturally  turn  with 
more  peculiar  interest  to  the  fortunes  of  the  Reformation  in  his 
own  country  ;  and  I  must  therefore  say  a  few  words  before  I 
conclude  my  lecture  on  this  more  particular  portion  of  the  gen- 
eral subject. 

The  student  must,  in  the  first  place,  have  been  much  pleased 
when  he  was  considering  the  causes  of  the  Reformation  in  Rob- 
ertson and  other  writers,  to  observe  the  striking  merits  of  his 
countryman,  John  Wickliffe.  He  will  find  an  account  of  him 
in  Henry's  History  of  England  ;  in  Neal's  History  of  the  Puri- 
tans ;  in  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  ;  and  in  the  third  volume  of 
Mosheim ;  where  he  will  see  a  reference  given  to  a  more  com- 
plete and  regular  history  of  his  life  ;  lastly,  in  Milner's  Church 
History.  Nothing  can  be  more  creditable  to  any  man,  than  to 
anticipate  the  discoveries  of  a  subsequent  age,  to  be  already  as 
enlightened  as  those  who  live  a  century  and  a  half  afterwards. 
Such  was  the  exalted  merit  of  WicklifFe  ;  the  reformers  seem 
in  no  respect  to  have  surpassed,  many  not  to  have  equalled  him. 
What  is  still  more  extraordinary,  is,  that  he  was  allowed  to  die 
as  peaceably  as  if  he  had  not  been  wiser  than  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  student  may  now  turn  to  the  History  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, as  given  by  Mr.  Hume. 

It  is  always  desirable  to  consider  a  subject  in  as  simple  a 
form  as  possible  ;  and  on  this  account  I  would  recommend  you 
to  pause  at  the  end  of  his  reign  of  Elizabeth  or  James  ;  for  the 
materials  afforded  for  your  reflection  in  the  subsequent  reigns 
will  remain  the  same,  only  exhibited  to  your  view  in  colors 
still  more  striking. 


REFORMATION.  261 

Turning  to  the  account,  which  now  remains  in  Mr.  Hume's 
work  after  his  last  corrections  and  omissions  (for  those  who 
wrote  against  him  wrote  against  passages  which  you  will  now 
not  find),  I  have  the  following  observations  to  submit  to  your 
reflection. 

The  cause  of  the  reformers,  in  their  first  struggle  with  the 
church  of  Rome,  which  I  distinguish  from  their  subsequent 
contests  with  each  other,  was  the  cause  of  truth,  of  religion, 
and  of  all  the  best  interests  of  society.  Now,  the  proper  and 
just  and  natural  influence  of  so  sacred  a  cause  on  the  human 
mind  is  not  duly  observed  or  properly  respected  by  Mr. 
Hume,  and  the  student  must  not  suffer  himself  to  be  insensibly 
led  into  so  striking  an  injustice  to  such  virtuous  men,  and  into 
so  thoughtless  an  indifference  to  such  sacred  principles.  It 
would  not  be  fair  to  try  Mr.  Hume  by  a  single  sentence  which 
may  have  been  inconsiderately  written,  but  the  reader  may 
proceed  through  all  the  causes  of  the  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation which  are  mentioned  in  this  part  of  his  history,  and  he 
will  see  those  that  are  secondary  and  those  that  are  not  cred- 
itable to  the  reformers  chiefly  and  indeed  alone  insisted  upon. 
It  is  not  that  causes  are  mentioned  that  did  not  operate,  but 
that  the  natural  and  just  efficacy  and  influence  of  truth  and 
religious  inquiry,  when  opposed  to  the  gross  doctrines  and 
abuses  of  the  papacy,  are  overlooked.  The  fault  here  is  con- 
siderably analogous  to  the  fault  committed  by  Mr.  Gibbon  in 
his  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chapters,  with  respect  to  the  propa- 
gation of  Christianity.  He  produces  and  dwells  upon  every 
cause  but  the  main  and  the  right  one  ;  that  on  which  the  rest 
depended. 

Again  ;  —  Objections  that  belong  to  some  of  the  reformers 
are  transferred  to  all,  and  made  characteristic  of  the  whole 
cause. 

In  all  questions,  civil  as  well  as  religious,  there  is  no  species 
of  injustice  against  which  the  student  should  be  so  much  on 
his  guard  as  this.  None  is  more  common  ;  good  and  wise 
men  are  continually  made  to  answer  for  the  bad  principles  and 
bad  conduct  of  others,  with  whom  they  indeed  agree,  but 
agree,  only  as  to  certain  points.  It  is  often  the  ungenerous 
artifice  of  their  opponents,  and  always  the  custom  of  the  vul- 
gar, to  confound  these  distinctions,  however  real. 


262  LECTURE  X. 

Again  ;  —  Improper  motives  are  sometimes  imputed  to  the 
reformers.  Our  nature  is  made  up,  as  it  is  well  known,  of 
various  ingredients  ;  our  best  principles  readily  associating 
with,  and  often  assisted  by,  motives  not  the  most  dignified. 
But  it  is  not  philosophical,  neither  is  it  a  part  friendly  to  man- 
kind, to  rob  our  virtues  of  their  due  share  in  those  actions 
which  they  so  contribute  to  produce,  if  they  do  not  entirely 
produce.  A  species  of  injustice  like  this,  is  one  of  the  chief 
fallacies  in  the  works  of  Rochefoucault,  Mandeville,  and  the 
licentious  moralists. 

Again  ;  —  The  people  are  represented  by  Mr.  Hume  as 
passive  with  respect  to  religion,  and  as  ready  to  receive  any 
form  or  description  of  it.  But  the  student  is  not  from  thence 
to  conclude,  as  too  many  have  done,  that  this  is  an  argument 
against  all  religion.  True  religion  as  well  as  false  religion 
may  be  taken  upon  authority.  The  original  question  of  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  a  religion  remains  the  same. 

An  argument  indeed  may  be  hence  adduced  for  the  freedom 
of  religious  inquiry,  that  the  people  may  see  that  others  in- 
quire, though  they  cannot  ;  but  this  is  the  proper  conclusion, 
not  an  indiscriminate  conclusion  against  all  religion  whatever. 

Lastly,  there  is  through  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hume's  recital 
a  certain  air  of  carelessness  with  respect  to  religion,  and  a 
readiness  to  represent  all  warmth  on  the  subject,  even  in  these 
very  peculiar  times,  as  fanaticism.  Mr.  Hume's  opinions  in 
religion  are  well  known,  and  all  this  might  have  been  expected. 
You  will  therefore  take  into  your  account  these  particular 
opinions.  Assuredly  Mr.  Hume,  as  an  historian,  should  not 
have  taken  his  own  view  of  the  question  of  religion  for  grant- 
ed, and  should  not  have  confounded  the  warmth  of  men,  when 
opposed  to  the  abuses  of  religion,  with  their  fury,  when  en- 
countering each  other  ;  when  contending  not  for  the  opening 
of  the  Bible,  but  for  some  speculative  point  in  divinity,  or 
when  persecuting  each  other  on  account  of  some  vestment  or 
ceremony,  in  itself  of  no  importance. 

When  these  cautions  have  been  premised,  I  am  not  aware 
that  you  can  be  otherwise  than  materially  instructed  by  the 
penetrating  remarks  of  this  historian  on  the  effects  of  the 
religious  principle  during  these  singular  times.  No  man 
should  turn  entirely  away  from  the  criticisms  even  of  his  en- 
emy. The  most  religious  man  may  be  taught  lessons  by 


REFORMATION.  263 

some  of  the  comments  of  this  powerful  writer  ;  and  the  more 
blind  tenets  of  the  Papists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  more  fan- 
tastic whims  of  the  Puritans  on  the  other,  whenever  they  ap- 
pear, may  surely  be  surrendered  to  his  mercy. 

Along  with  Hume,  I  would  recommend  Burnet's  History  of 
the  Reformation  ;  no  cautions  need  be  suggested  before  the 
perusal  of  the  laborious  work  of  this  impartial  and  liberal 
churchman,  an  ornament  to  his  order,  and  who  deserved  the 
name  of  Christian. 

Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  should  be  looked  at.  It  is  indeed 
in  itself  a  long  and  dreadful  history  of  the  intolerance  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  astonishing  constancy  of 
the  human  mind  ;  that  is,  it  is  at  once  a  monument  of  its  lowest 
debasement  and  its  highest  elevation. 

The  volumes  of  Fox  are  also  everywhere  descriptive  of  the 
manners  and  opinions  of  the  different  ages  through  which  the 
author  proceeds. 

The  transactions  relating  to  Anne  Askew  ;  the  disputations 
of  Lambert  before  Henry  the  Eighth  ;  of  Latirner,  Ridley, 
and  Cranmer  at  Oxford  ;  with  the  examinations  and  sufferings 
of  these  eminent  martyrs,  should  be  thoroughly  read,  and  may 
serve  as  specimens  of  such  atrocious,  and  at  first  sight,  such 
astonishing  scenes. 

Fox  may  be  always  consulted  when  the  enormities  of  the 
Papists  are  to  be  sought  for. 

Those  of  the  Protestants  may  be  collected  from  Burnet,  or 
rather  may  be  seen  in  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  and  in 
Dodd's  Church  History  ;  and  of  Dodd  you  will  see  an  account 
in  Chalmers's  Biographia  Britannica.  He  did  not  put  his  name 
to  his  work. 

I  have  placed  in  a  note-book  on  the  table  some  particulars, 
which,  though  not  necessary  to  a  Roman  Catholic  audience, 
may  not  be  without  their  edification  to  an  audience  of  Protes- 
tants, and  of  members  of  the  Church  of  England. 

In  Dr.  Lingard's  History  we  may  consider  ourselves  as  now 
receiving  what  we  have  never  before  had,  —  a  statement  of  the 
case  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  by  one  of  their  own  body,  at  a 
proper  distance  of  time  from  the  events. 

The  account  which  is  given  by  Dr.  Robertson  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  Scotland  must  be  considered  ;  it  is  not  only  valuable 


264  LECTURE  X. 

as  describing  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Reformation  in 
a  part  of  our  own  island,  but  it  is  enriched  by  many  reason- 
able observations  on  the  Reformation,  and  on  reformers  in  gen- 
eral. 

Robertson  must  be  compared  with  Hume  ;  some  difference 
may  be  observed  in  their  accounts.  Hume  certainly  intended 
to  make  the  reformers  of  Scotland  odious  and  ridiculous. 

He  had  great  powers  of  exciting  sentiments  of  this  kind  on 
whatever  occasion  he  pleased  ;  and  he  has  certainly  succeeded 
in  the  instance  before  us.  It  is  quite  necessary,  therefore,  that 
a  very  valuable  book,  lately  published  by  Dr.  M'Crie,  should 
be  read.  His  Life  of  Knox  will  correct  our  present  notions  in 
many  important  points.  Knox  does  not  seem  to  have  been  al- 
together the  ferocious,  unfeeling  barbarian  that  we  suppose, 
though  he  was  most  vehement,  and  on  the  subject  of  Popery 
most  intolerant.  He  was,  however,  much  the  same  in  nature 
and  merit  with  many  of  the  great  reformers  of  England  and  of 
the  Continent,  and  had  greater  influence  here,  as  well  as  in 
Scotland,  and  was  from  the  first  a  more  important  person  than 
the  general  reader  is  aware  of. 

It  is  very  desirable,  that  along  with  Mr.  Hume's  History 
some  work  like  this  of  Dr.  M'Crie's  should  be  well  meditated. 
For  the  situation  of  Europe  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  Refor- 
mation should  be  known  ;  what  Popery  was,  and  what  its  ten- 
ets and  ceremonies  ;  in  short,  what  was  the  battle,  — according 
to  a  favorite  image  of  Knox,  — what  the  battle  which  the  re- 
formers had  to  fight  ;  and  what  was  the  piety,  what  the  invincible 
confidence  in  the  cause  of  truth,  with  which  these  first  reform- 
ers, these  great  representatives  of  some  of  the  highest  qual- 
ities of  the  human  character,  were  animated  ;  no  book  will 
serve  this  purpose  better  than  this  Life  of  Knox  by  Dr. 
M'Crie. 

Some  misrepresentations  in  Mr.  Hume's  account  are  also 
pointed  out,  sufficient  to  show  that  this  historian  is  not  to  be 
trusted  when  he  has  to  describe  the  conduct  of  the  professors 
of  religion. 

It  may  be  added,  that  the  student  will  derive  from  the 
work  a  more  favorable  impression  of  the  Presbyterian  com- 
munion than  he  has  hitherto  in  all  probability  entertained  ; 
new  impressions  of  this  kind  are  valuable.  Different  sects 


REFORMATION.  265 

of  Christians  should  know  what  are  the  more  appropriate  merits 
as  well  as  faults  of  each  other.  They  always  content  them- 
selves with  the  latter,  — the  faults. 

I  must  mention,  before  I  conclude,  the  two  last  volumes  of 
Dean  Milner's  Ecclesiastical  History  ;  they  are  written,  like 
the  principal  part  of  the  work  by  his  brother,  upon  a  particular 
system  of  doctrine ;  but  with  this,  as  a  lecturer  of  history,  I 
have  no  concern.  The  reason  for  which  it  is  necessary  that  I 
should  recommend  them  to  your  attention  is  this,  that  they 
contain,  particularly  in  the  life  of  Luther,  the  best  account  I 
know,  of  the  more  intellectual  part  of  the  history  of  the  Ref- 
ormation ;  in  other  words,  they  contain  the  progress  of  the 
Reformation  in  Luther's  own  mind  ;  a  very  curious  subject. 

Such  were  the  great  talents  and  qualities  of  Luther,  and 
such  the  situation  of  Europe  at  the  time,  that  the  Reformation 
in  fact  passed  from  the  mind  of  the  one  into  the  mind  of  the 
other. 

1  therefore  consider  these  two  volumes,  particularly  in  the 
lives  of  Wickliffe  and  Luther,  as  a  most  entertaining  and 
valuable  accession  to  our  general  stock  of  information,  and  one 
that  may  be  considered  as  accessible  to  every  student. 

Dr.  Milner  appears  to  me  too  determined  a  panegyrist  of 
Luther.  This,  however,  may  be  forgiven  him  ;  not  to  say 
that  it  becomes  me  to  speak  with  diffidence,  when  I  speak  to 
differ  from  one,  whom  I  know  to  have  been  so  able,  and  whom 
I  conceive  to  have  been  so  diligent. 

Since  these  lectures  were  written  many  valuable  and  inter- 
esting works  have  appeared  ;  more  than  I  can  enumerate,  — 
Histories  of  the  Reformation  by  Mr.  Blunt  and  Mr.  Soame  ; 
different  Lives  of  Erasmus  and  Luther  ;  Lives  of  Wickliffe, 
Cranmer,  and  our  eminent  divines,  by  Mr.  Le  Bas,  a  learned 
and  powerful  writer,  and  many  learned  treatises  connected 
with  the  doctrines  of  our  English  church ;  that  is,  with  the 
Reformation.  Among  the  rest,  some  striking  observations  on 
Erasmus  and  Luther  by  Mr.  Hallam,  in  the  first  volume  of 
his  intended  work  on  the  Literature  of  Europe. 

VOL.  i.  34 


NOTES. 

i. 

CALVIN,  in  his  letter  to  the  protector  Somerset,  observes,  after  describing 
two  sorts  of  troublesome  people,  Gospellers  and  Papists  (probably),  that  both 
the  one  and  the  other  ought  to  have  the  sword  drawn  upon  them. 

"  Alii  cerebrosi,  sab  Evangelii  nomine ;  alii  in  superstitionibus  antichristi 
ita  obduraverunt,"  &c. 

Of  these  he  declares  :  — 

"  Merentur  quidem  turn  hi,  turn  illi,  gladio  ultore  coerceri,  quern  tibi 
tradidit  Dominus."  —  Page  67  of  Calvin's  Epistles,  Geneva  Edit.  1575. 

See  Collier's  Church  History,  part  ii.  b.  4,  page  284,  edit.  1714. 

Bucer,  writing  to  Calvin,  says  : — 

"  At  quomodo  Serveto  lernee  hsereseon  et  pertinacissimo  homini  parci 
potuerit,  non  video."  —  Vide  same  edition  of  Calvin's  Epistles,  page  147. 

II. 

Intolerance.     Written  in  1810. 

IT  is  generally  supposed  that  it  was  only  the  bloody  Queen  Mary  and 
Bishop  Bonner  who  put  people  to  death  on  account  of  their  religious  opin- 
ions ;  that  the  Protestants  were  incapable  of  such  enormities. 

This  is  not  so,  and  Protestants  should  know  it.  Many  were  put  to  death  in 
the  time  of  the  brutal  Henry  the  Eighth.  But  there  were  some  even  in  the 
time  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  though  not  for  Popery  ;  more  than  one  hundred 
and  sixty  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  ; 
sixteen  or  seventeen  in  the  time  of  James  the  First ;  and  more  than  twenty 
by  the  Presbyterians  and  Republicans.  These  are  the  facts. 

Arians  and  Anabaptists,  for  instance,  were  some  of  them  actually  burned. 
Puritans  and  sectarians  were,  some  of  them,  hanged.  These  seem  instances 
of  direct  and  distinct  intolerance. 

But  with  regard  to  others,  sanguinary  penal  laws  were  made,  and  Papists 
executed  under  them,  on  supposed  principles  of  state  necessity.  It  remains, 
then,  to  be  considered  how  far  this  state  necessity  existed. 

Some  of  the  particulars  may  be  noted  briefly  hereafter,  and  they  may 
serve  to  put  good  men  on  their  guard  against  the  workings  of  their  own 
nature  on  all  subjects  connected  with  their  religious  opinions.  But  in  the 
first  place,  in  page  398  of  Fuller's  Church  History,  the  text  of  King  Ed- 
ward's Diary  is  given.  "  May  2nd,  1550.  —  Joan  Bocher  was  burnt  for 


NOTES.  267 

holding  that  Christ  was  not  incarnate  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  being  condemned 
the  year  before,"  &c.     This  is  the  text. 

Fuller  himself  writes  a  century  afterwards,  and  his  comment  is  this  :  — 
"  An  obstinate  heretic  maintaining,"  &c.  &c.  "  She,  with  one  or  two 
Arians,  were  all  who  (and  that  justly)  died  in  this  king's  reign,  for  their 
opinions."  — "  And  that  justly  !"  says  Fuller. 

In  Heylin's  Church  History,  pages  88  and  89,  may  be  seen  the  particulars 
of  this  horrible  transaction.  Cranmer  and  Ridley  were  unhappily  distin- 
guished in  it.  The  king  was  averse,  and  said  Cranmer  must  be  answerable 
to  God  if  he  (the  king)  signed  the  death  warrant. 

George  Paris  was  burned  for  Arianism  on  the  24th  of  April  following, 
1551. 

A  further  reference  may  be  made  to  cases,  where  no  plea  of  state  necessity 
could  have  been  urged.  Observe  the  conduct  of  Elizabeth  and  her  advisers, 
or  rather  of  Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

In  page  549  of  Collier's  History,  volume  ii.,  an  account  is  given  of  the 
Anabaptists,  taken  from  Stow  ;  a  conventicle  had  been  discovered ;  twenty- 
seven  seized,  four  were  recovered,  and  brought  to  a  recantation.  "  The 
damnable  and  detestable  heresies"  which  they  recanted  were  these  :  1.  That 
Christ  took  not  flesh  of  the  substance  of  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary.  2,  That 
infants  born  of  faithful  parents  ought  to  be  rebaptized.  3.  That  no  Christian 
man  ought  to  be  a  magistrate,  or  bear  the  sword  or  office  of  authority.  4. 
That  it  is  not  lawful  for  a  Christian  man  to  take  an  oath. 

Ten  Dutchmen  and  one  woman  were  brought  into  the  consistory  at  St. 
Paul's,  and  condemned  to  the  stake.  The  woman  was  recovered,  and  the 
government  "  was  so  merciful"  as  to  banish  the  rest.  This  clemency  giving 
encouragement,  two  of  the  same  nation  and  heterodoxies  were  burned  in 
Smithfield.  Fox,  the  martyrologist,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  queen  in  their 
behalf,  "  to  mitigate  the  rigor,"  "  to  change  the  punishment,"  "  to  respite 
the  execution  for  a  month  or  two,  that  learned  men  might  bring  them  off 
their  heresy."  A  reprieve  was  granted;  Fox's  expedient  tried  without 
success ;  and  they  were  therefore  burned.  The  above  account  is  abridged 
and  given  in  the  words  of  Collier. 

In  Fuller's  Church  History,  to  which  he  refers,  Book  IX.,  page  104, 
edit.  1655,  Fox's  letter  is  given  j  it  does  him  the  highest  honor,  all  circum- 
stances considered  •,  it  is  temperate,  conciliating,  humane  ;  in  a  word  it  is 
Christian.  He  observes,  "  Erroribus  quidem  ipsis  nihil  possit  absurdius 
esse,"  &c.  "  sed  ita  habet  humanse  infirmitatis  conditio,  si  divina  paululum 
luce  destituti  nobis  relinquimur,  quo  non  ruimus  prsecipites  ?"  "  Istas  sectas 
idonea  comprimendas  correctione  censeo,  verum  enim  vero  ignibus  ac  flam- 
mis  pice  ac  sulphure  aestuantibus  viva  miserorum  corpora  torrefacere,  judicii 
mains  csecitate  quain  impetu  voluntatis  errantium,  durum  istud  ac  Romani 
magis  exempli  esse,  quarn  evangelise  consuetudinis  videtur,"  &c.  &c. 
"  Quamobrem,  &c.  supplex  pro  Christo  rogarem,  &c.  ut  vitse  miserorum 
parcatur,  saltern  ut  horrori  obsistatur,  atque  in  aliud  quodcunque  commu- 
tetur  supplicii  genus  ;  sunt  ejectiones,  sunt  vincula,  &c.  &c.  ne  piras  ac 
flammas  Smithfieldianas,  &c.  &c.  sinas  recandescere." 

The  words  that  follow  in  Fuller  are  these  (Fuller  wrote  in  the  time  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England)  :  —  "  This 


268  NOTES. 

letter  was  written  by  Mr.  John  Fox  (from  whose  own  hand  I  transcribed  it), 
very  loath  that  Smithfield,  formerly  consecrated  with  martyrs'  ashes,  should 
now  be  profaned  with  heretics',  and  desirous  that  the  Papists  might  enjoy 
their  own  monopoly  of  cruelty  in  burning  condemned  persons.  But  though 
Queen  Elizabeth  constantly  called  him  her  father  Fox,  yet  herein  was  she 
no  dutiful  daughter,  giving  hirn  a  flat  denial.  Indeed  damnable  were  their 
impieties,  and  she  necessitated  to  this  severity,  who  having  formerly  punished 
some  traitors,  if  now  sparing  these  blasphemers,  the  world  would  condemn 
her,  as  being  more  earnest  in  asserting  her  own  safety,  than  God's  honor. 
Hereupon  the  writ  de  haeretic.o  comburendo  (which  for  seventeen  years  had 
hung  only  up  in  terrorem),  was  now  taken  down  and  put  in  execution,  and 
the  two  Anabaptists  burned  in  Smithfield,  died  in  great  horror  with  crying 
and  roaring." 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  exhibit  for  perusal  this  horrible  writ.  William 
Sautre  was  the  first  victim  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  1401. 

FORM  of  the  Writ  de  Hceretico  Comburendo  from  Fitzherbert's  JVatura, 
Brevium,  2d  Vol.  p.  269,  ninth  edition. 

The  king  to  the  mayor  and  sheriffs  of  London,  greeting.  Whereas  the 
Venerable  Father,  Thomas  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  primate  of  all  Eng- 
land, and  legate  of  the  apostolic  see,  with  the  consent  and  assent  of  the 
bishops  and  his  brothers  the  suffragans,  and  also  of  the  whole  clergy  of  his 
province,  in  his  provincial  council  assembled,  the  orders  of  law  in  this  behalf 
requisite  being  in  all  things  observed  ;  by  his  definitive  sentence,  pronoun- 
ced and  declared  William  Sawtre  (sometime  chaplain,  condemned  for  heresy 
and  by  him  the  said  William  heretofore  in  form  of  law  abjured,  and  him  the 
said  William  relapsed  into  the  said  heresy)  a  manifest  heretic,  and  decreed 
to  be  degraded,  and  hath  for  that  cause  really  degraded  him  from  all  clerical 
prerogative  and  privilege  ;  and  hath  decreed  hirn  the  said  William,  to  be 
left,  and  hath  really  left  him  to  the  secular  court,  according  to  the  laws  and 
canonical  sanctions  set  forth  in  this  behalf,  and  holy  mother  the  church  hath 
nothing  further  to  do  in  the  premises.  We  therefore,  being  zealous  for 
justice,  and  a  lover  of  the  Catholic  faith,  willing  to  maintain  and  defend  holy 
church,  and  the  rights  and  liberties  thereof  (as  much  as  in  us  lies),  to  extir- 
pate by  the  roots  such  heresies  and  errors  out  of  the  kingdom  of  England, 
and  to  punish  heretics  so  convicted  with  condign  punishment;  and  being 
mindful  that  such  heretics  convicted  in  form  aforesaid,  and  condemned 
according  to  the  law  divine  and  human,  by  canonical  institution,  and  in 
this  behalf  accustomed,  ought  to  be  burned  with  a  burning  flame  of  fire,  do 
command  you  most  strictly  as  we  can,  firmly  enjoi'ning  that  you  commit  to 
the  fire  the  aforesaid  William  being  in  your  custody,  in  some  public  and 
open  place  within  the  liberties  of  the  city  aforesaid,  before  the  people 
publicly  by  reason  of  the  premises,  and  cause  him  really  to  be  burned  in  the 
same  fire,  in  detestation  of  this  crime,  and  to  the  manifest  example  of  other 
Christians;  and  this  you  are  by  no  means  to  omit,  under  the  peril  falling 
thereon.  Witness,  &c. 

This  writ  was  used  nearly  word  for  word  by  Elizabeth,  when  she  put  to 
death  the  two  Anabaptists  in  the  seventeenth  or  eighteenth  year  of  her 


NOTES.  269 

reign.  The  writ  may  be  readily  seen  by  turning  to  Collier's  Church  Histo- 
ry, in  the  fifteenth  page  of  the  preface  to  the  second  folio  volume,  edition 
1714.  This  Protestant  princess  could  sign  the  following  dreadful  words  : 

JNos  iiritur  ut  zelator  justitiee,  et  fidei  Catholicae  defensor,  volentesque  eccle- 
siam  sanctam  ac  juraet  libertates  ejusdem,  et  fidem  Catholicam  manu  tenere 
et  defendere,  ac  hujusmodi  haireses  et  errores  ubique  (quantum  in  nobis 
est)  eradicare  et  extirpare,  ac  haereticos  sic  convictos  animadversione  con- 
digna  puniri,  attendentesque  hujusmodi  hfereticos  in  forma  praedicta  convic- 
tos et  damnatos,  justa  leges  et  consuetudines  regni  nostri  Anglise  in  hac 
parte  consuetas,  ignis  incendio  comburi  debere. 

Vobis  prascipimus  quod  dictos  Johannem  Peters,  et  Henricum  Turwert, 
in  custodLi  vestra  existentes,  apud  West  Smithfield,  in  loco  publico  et 
aperto,  ex  causa  praemissa,  corarn  populo  igni  committi,  ac  ipsos  Johannem 
Peters,  et  Henricum  Turwert  in  eodem  igne  realiter  comburi  faciatis,  in 
hujusmodi  criminis  detestationem,  aliorumque  hominum  exemplum,  ne  in 
simile  crimen  labantur,  et  hoc  sub  periculo  incumbenti,  nullatenus  omit- 
tatis. 

Teste  regina  apud  Gorambury  decimo  quinto  die  Julii ; 

Per  ipsam  reginam. 

ELIZABETH. 

Such  are  the  facts. 

There  is  here  no  terror  of  Papists ;  of  men  intending  by  mobs  to  over- 
throw the  government. 

The  case  is  simply  a  case  of  intolerance,  and  thus,  though  every  considera- 
tion that  should  have  influenced  the  understanding,  and  affected  the  feelings 
of  Elizabeth  and  her  counsellors,  had  been  urged  by  Fox  in  the  most  unob- 
trusive and  respectful  manner  ;  "  In  igne  realiter  comburi  faciatis,"  says 
the  writ ;  "  in  hujusmodi  criminis  detestationem." 

It  is  therefore  impossible  to  impute  the  violent  and  sanguinary  laws  and 
executions  of  this  reign  to  mere  motives  of  state  policy.  The  Roman  Catho- 
lic writers  do  not  make  this  mistake. 

Yet  they  do  in  their  own  instance.  Father  Parsons,  in  his  Reply  to  Fox, 
"  made  it  appear,"  as  he  supposed,  "  that  many  of  them  ('the  Protestant 
martyrs)  died  for  treason  ;  some  were  notoriously  scandalous  and  wicked 
persons  ;  others  distracted,  and  no  better  than  enthusiasts,"  &c.  &c.  These 
are  his  excuses.  —  Dodd's  Church  History,  page  4G3. 

Observe  now  what  these  penal  laws  were,  and  what  the  horrible  conse- 
quences. 

Elizabeth  comes  to  the  throne  in  1558 ;  in  the  fifth  year  of  her  reign  she 
asserts  her  supremacy.  It  was  made  death  to  deny  twice  this  supremacy. 

Now  this  supremacy  of  the  pope  is  a  point  of  religious  faith  with  the 
Roman  Catholics.  Bishop  Fisher,  and  Sir  Thomas  Moore  (as  she  and  her 
parliaments  knew),  died  for  it. 

Ab  effort  was  made  to  disentangle  the  civil  obligations  due  to  the  sove- 
reign, from  the  religious  obligation  due  to  the  pope,  as  the  head  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  church,  and  the  supposed  immediate  descendant  and  repre- 
sentative and  vicegerent  of  Christ  here  on  earth. 

On  this  account,  from  1571  to  1594,  were  put  to  death  twelve  persons, 
seven  gentlemen  and  five  clergymen.  Their  names  are  given,  page  320, 


270  NOTES. 

part  iv.  b.  3,  vol.  ii.,  of  Dodd's  Church  History.  Dodd  is  the  Roman 
Catholic  historian. 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  her  reign,  1570,  the  bringing  in  the  pope's  bulls, 
or  other  superstitious  things,  was  made  death.  In  the  twenty- third  year  it 
was  made  death  to  withdraw  any  from  the  established  religion.  It  was  also 
made  death  to  be  so  persuaded  or  withdrawn. 

In  the  twenty-seventh  year,  1585,  Jesuits,  seminary  priests,  and  other 
such,  were  ordered  out  of  the  kingdom,  and,  if  remaining  in  the  realm,  were 
to  be  punished  with  death,  as  were  even  those  who  harboured  them. 

The  result  of  acts  like  these  was,  that  from  1581  to  1603,  no  less  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  of  secular  clergy  were  put  to  death  for  exercising  their 
sacerdotal  functions  as  Roman  Catholics.  Their  names  are  given  in  Dodd, 
page  321.  Twenty-four  suffered  in  the  year  1588,  the  year  of  the  Spanish 
invasion.  Sixty  of  them,  after  that  year,  when  all  danger  was  at  an  end, 
and  even  the  plea  of  state  necessity  no  longer  existed. 

Thirty-three  different  persons  were  put  to  death  for  entertaining  and 
assisting  priests  of  the  Roman  communion,  yeomen  and  gentlemen.  Twelve 
for  being  reconciled  to  the  Roman  communion.  The  names  of  all  these 
appear  in  Dodd,  pages  321,  322,  323.  Three  Jesuits  also  suffered  for  exer- 
cising their  sacerdotal  functions.  Forty  priests  were  banished  in  1585,  after 
having  been  condemned.  Twenty  (clergymen,  gentlemen,  and  Jesuits) 
were  condemned,  and  were  either  pardoned  or  died  in  prison,  from  the  year 
1581  to  1600.  Their  names  are  given. 

That  is,  on  the  whole,  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty  persons  were 
put  to  death  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  for  being  priests,  or  for  acting 
as  priests ;  for  harbouring  priests,  for  converting,  or  being  converted  ;  lastly, 
for  denying  the  supremacy. 

In  May,  1579,  Matthew  Hammond,  having  first  lost  his  ears  for  opprobri- 
ous language  to  the  queen,  was  burned  for  blasphemy  and  heresy  at  Norwich. 
In  1583,  Elias  Thacker  and  J.  Coping,  Brownists,  were  hanged  at  Bury. 
John  Lewes  was  burned  at  Norwich. 

These  and  others  are  clear  cases  of  religious  intolerance. 

The  sanguinary  and  violent  laws  enacted  in  this  reign,  and  not  only 
enacted, but  put  into  execution,  are  excused  upon  the  plea  of  state  necessity, 
—  the  tyrant's  plea  at  all  times,  —  and  not  sufficient  j  though  these  times, 
and  Elizabeth's  situation,  were,  no  doubt,  very  peculiar.  The  Roman  Cath- 
olics in  Mary's  reign,  Bonner  in  particular,  had  excuses  (such  as  they  were) 
always  ready,  and  talked  of  retaliation,  though  they  were  not  burned  at 
Smithfield  as  the  Protestants  were. 

The  Protestants  insisted,  that  theirs  was  the  true  faith;  the  Papists,  that 
theirs  was  not  only  the  true,  but  the  ancient,  faith ;  arid  in  justice  even  to 
the  Roman  Catholics,  bigoted  and  bloody  as  they  were,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, that  the  Protestants  were  the  assailants,  that  they  were  the  innova- 
tors, the  disturbers,  the  propagators  of  new  opinions,  &c. 

The  Roman  Catholics  could  always  say  to  the  Protestants,  "  Christ  left 
his  church  behind  him.  What  church  but  ours?  Did  not  the  church  which 
Christ  left,  begin  to  exist  till  the  days  of  your  Luther  ?  "  Such  was  their 
plausible  language. 

But  the  subject  of  toleration  was  not   understood.     The   offences  of  each 


NOTES.  271 

party  may  be  compared,  and  the  atrocities  of  the  one  may  be  more  tremen- 
dous than  the  cruelties  of  the  other,  —  they  certainly  were.  The  guilt, 
however,  of  putting  to  death  their  fellow-creatures,  must  be  shared  by  both, 
and  should,  though  in  different  degrees,  and  to  a  different  extent,  be  an 
eternal  warning  to  ourselves  of  the  original  tendencies  of  the  human  mind 
on  these  subjects. 

"  What  could  be  more  provoking  to  the  court,"  says  Collier  (a  nonjuror, 
but  a  Protestant),  "  than  to  see  the  queen's  honor  (Queen  Mary's)  aspersed, 
their  religion  insulted,  their  preacher  shot  at  in  the  pulpit,  and  a  lewd 
impostor  played  against  the  government.  Had  the  reformed  been  more 
smooth  and  inoffensive  in  their  behaviour,  had  the  eminent  clergy  of  the 
party  published  an  abhorrence  of  such  unwarrantable  methods,  'tis  possible, 
some  may  say,  they  might  have  met  with  gentler  usage,  and  prevented  the 
persecution  from  flaming  out."  —  Collier,  part  ii.,  b.  5,  page  371. 

"  The  governors  of  the  church,"  says  Heylin  (a  Protestant  writer  also), 
exasperated  by  these  provocations,  and  the  queen  (Mary)  charging  Wyatt's 
rebellion  on  the  Protestant  party,  they  both  agreed  on  the  reviving  of  some 
ancient  statutes,  made  in  the  time  of  King  Richard  the  Second,  Henry 
the  Fourth,  and  Henry  the  Fifth,  for  the  severe  punishment  of  obstinate 
heretics,  even  to  death  itself."  —  Heylin,  page  47. 

"  The  heretics  themselves,"  said  Bonner,  "  put  one  of  their  own  number 
(Servetus)  to  a  cruel  death.  Is  it  a  crime  in  us  if  we  proceed  against  them 
with  the  like  severity  ?  "  —  Heylin,  page  48. 

"  Heretics  themselves  (one  of  the  Catholic  tracts  observed)  do  not 
scruple  burning  Dissenters,  when  the  government  is  on  their  side.  Some 
Arians  and  Anabaptists,  condemned  to  the  fire  by  the  Protestants,  were 
no  less  remarkable  for  the  regularity  of  their  lives,"  &c.  &c.  —  Collier, 
page  383. 

The  truth  is,  no  pleas  of  state  policy,  reprisals,  &c.  &c.,  are  to  be  listened 
to.  Intolerance  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  such  proceedings.  Intolerance, 
more  or  less,  from  the  bloody  writs  of  our  ancestors,  and  their  abominable 
fires  in  Smithfield,  down  to  our  own  penal  or  disabling  statutes,  against 
Dissenters  or  Roman  Catholics,  in  England  or  Ireland. 

James  the  First  died  in  March,  1625;  became  king  in  1603.  In  1612, 
Francis  Latham,  a  Roman  Catholic,  was  executed  on  account  of  the  su- 
premacy. He  distinguished  clearly  between  the  civil  obedience  which  he 
owed  James,  his  king,  and  the  obedience  which  he  owed  his  spiritual  sove- 
reign, the  pope,  but  in  vain.  He  was  hanged  at  Tyburn,  December  5.  The 
particulars  of  his  examination  and  execution  are  instructive,  but  very  dis- 
graceful to  the  Bishop  of  London  (King),  and  the  government.  They  are 
given,  page  369,  of  Dodd's  second  volume. 

N.  Owen,  a  gentleman  of  good  account,  was  long  confined  in  prison,  and 
at  last  condemned  to  die,  for  refusing  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy. 

He  suffered  May  17,  1615.  —  Dodd,  page  427. 

William  Brown  suffered  at  York  in  1605,  "  for  being  instrumental  in 
proselyting  the  king's  subjects  to  the  Roman  communion."  —  Dodd,  page 
431. 

Robert  Drury,  Matthew  Fletcher,  and  twelve  or  thirteen  others,  were  put 
to  death  on  different  accounts  connected  with  their  sacerdotal  functions.  — 


272  NOTES. 

Dodd's  Church  History,  page  525,  and  his  References,  377,  &c.;  vide  the 
Index. 

During  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  and  the  time  of  the  rebellion,  on 
account  of  their  sacerdotal  character,  two  suffered  in  1628,  one  in  1034,  one 
in  1G41,  six  in  1642,  two  in  1643,  three  in  1644,  one  in  1645,  four  in  1646 
and  1651,  and  two  in  1654.  — Vide  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  page  172. 

These  facts  are  very  disgraceful  to  the  Presbyterians  and  Republicans. 
Charles  would  not  have  put  Roman  Catholics  to  death  on  account  of  their 
religion,  it  is  therefore  the  Commons  who  must  be  responsible  for  these 
enormities. 

Charles  the  Second.  At  page  356,  &c.  of  Dodd,  there  are  several  very 
affecting  speeches  of  those  who  suffered  for  Oates's  plot.  About  seventeen 
were  executed  on  account  of  it  most  disgracefully. 

Nicholas  Postgate,  and  seven  others,  suffered  on  account  of  orders  in  1679. 
Fourteen  others  were  condemned,  but  reprieved  and  pardoned. 

These  horrible  executions  and  condemnations  must  have  been  more  or 
less  occasioned  by  the  insanity  of  the  nation  on  the  subject  of  popish  plots, 
more  particularly  Oates's  plot.  They  show  the  nature  not  only  of  intoler- 
ance, but  of  public  alarms,  popular  cries,  &c.  &c. 

The  case  of  the  covenanters  might  next  be  referred  to,  one  surely  of  intol- 
erance exercised  by  the  more  powerful  sect. 

Judge  Blackstone,  in  his  4th  book,  chap.  4,  states  the  laws  that  so  long 
remained  in  force  against  the  Papists ;  "  of  which  laws,"  says  he,  "  the 
President  Montesquieu  observes,  that  they  are  so  rigorous,  though  not  pro- 
fessedly of  the  sanguinary  kind,  that  they  do  all  the  hurt  that  can  possibly 
be  done  in  cold  blood." 

"  In  answer  to  this,"  says  Blackstone,  "  it  may  be  observed  that  these 
laws  are  seldom  exerted  to  their  utmost  rigor,  and,  indeed,  if  they  were, 
it  would  be  very  difficult  to  excuse  them,  for  they  are  rather  to  be  accounted 
for  from  their  history,  and  the  urgency  of  the  times  which  produced  them, 
than  to  be  approved,  upon  a  cool  review,  as  a  standing  system  of  laws." 

This  account  and  history  of  them  he  then  gives,  and  at  last  ventures  to 
say,  "  that  if  a  time  should  ever  arrive,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  very  distant 
(this  was  written  between  the  years  1755  and  1765),  when  all  fears  of  a  pre- 
tender shall  have  vanished,"  &c.  &c.  "  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  review  and 
soften  these  rigorous  edicts,"  &c. 

The  present  reign  (of  George  the  Third),  has  been  a  reign  of  concession, 
that  is,  a  reign  of  progressive  civil  wisdom  and  progressive  religious  knowl- 
edge on  these  subjects. 

The  question  is  at  length  debated,  among  all  reasonable  men,  as  properly 
a  question  of  civil  policy.  The  nature  of  religious  truth  and  the  rights  of 
religious  inquiry  are  better  understood  than  they  were  by  our  ancestors. 
These  are  held  sacred  in  theory  at  least.  And,  therefore,  all  that  now  re- 
mains to  be  observed  is,  that  no  real  conversions  can  be  expected  to  take 
place,  while  penal  statutes  or  test  acts  exist ;  because,  while  these  exist,  the 
point  of  honor  is  against  the  conversion. 

The  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  or  Dissenting  communions  will 
gradually  become  more  and  more  like  the  members  of  any  more  enlightened 
establishment,  in  their  views  and  opinions,  when  civil  offices  and  distinctions 


NOTES.  273 

are  first  laid  open  to  them,  but  in  no  other  way.  Those  of  them  who  are  of 
some  condition  or  rank  in  life,  or  of  superior  natural  talents,  will  first  suffer 
this  alteration  in  their  views  and  opinions.  Then  successful  merchants  and 
manufacturers;  and  this  sort  of  improvement  will  propagate  downward. 
At  length  the  clerical  part  will  be  gradually  improved  in  their  views  and 
opinions,  like  the  laity.  The  outward  and  visible  signs  of  the  worship  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  or  Dissenting  communion  may  alter,  or  may  in  the 
mean  time  remain  the  same ;  but  the  alteration  in  their  minds  and  tempers 
will  have  taken  place,  sufficiently  for  all  civil  purposes,  gradually,  insensi- 
bly, and  with  or  without  acknowledgment  or  alteration  in  their  creeds  and 
doctrines.  This  is  the  only  conversion  that  can  now  be  thought  of:  an 
alteration  this,  not  of  a  day  or  a  year,  but  to  be  produced  in  a  course  of 
years  by  the  unrestrained  operation  of  the  increasing  knowledge  and  pros- 
perity of  mankind.  Nothing  could  have  kept  the  inferior  and  more  ignorant 
sects  and  churches  from  gradually  assimilating  themselves  to  the  superior 
and  more  enlightened  communion,  in  the  course  of  the  last  half  century, 
but  tests  and  penal  statutes,  and  all  the  various  machinery  of  exclusion  and 
proscription. 

But  neither  on  the  one  side  nor  the  other  are  the  spiritual  pastors  and 
teachers  to  be  at  all  listened  to  in  these  discussions.  What  is  reasonable  is 
to  be  done,  to  be  done  from  time  to  time,  and  the  event  need  not  be  feared. 
Statesmen  will  never  advance  the  civil  and  religious  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity, if  they  are  to  wait  till  they  can  settle  in  any  manner  satisfactory  to  the 
Dissenting  teacher  and  the  established  Churchman,  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  to  the  Protestant  minister,  their  opposite  and  long  established  claims 
and  opinions  :  claims  and  opinions  from  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
statesman,  a.,  much  as  possible,  to  escape.  I  am  speaking  now  of  men  as 
rulers  of  kingdoms,  not  as  individuals  ;  such  men  are  not  to  take  their  own 
views  of  religious  truth  for  granted,  and  propagate  it  accordingly  ;  the  state 
would  thus  necessarily  be  made  intolerant. 

"  To  overthrow  any  relig  on,"  says  Montesquieu,  (or,  he  might  have 
added,  any  particular  sect  in  religion,)  "  we  must  assail  it  by  the  good  things 
of  the  world  and  by  the  hopes  of  fortune ;  not  by  that  which  makes  men 
remember  it,  but  by  that  which  causes  them  to  forget  it;  not  by  that  which 
outrages  mankind,  but  by  every  thing  which  soothes  them,  and  facilitates 
the  other  passions  of  humanity  in  obtaining  predominance  over  religion." 

These  notes  were  written  in  the  year  1810,  and  placed  on  the  table  when 
the  two  lectures  on  the  Reformation  were  delivered.  Mr.  Hallam  published 
his  History  nearly  twenty  years  after.  He  very  thoroughly  discusses  the 
subject  of  the  statutes  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  then  sums  up  in  the  follow- 
ing words  :  —  "It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  any  writers  worthy  of  respect 
should,  either  through  undue  prejudice  against  an  adverse  religion,  or 
through  timid  acquiescence  in  whatever  has  been  enacted,  have  offered  for 
this  odious  code  the  false  pretext  of  political  necessity.  That  necessity,  I 
am  persuaded,  can  never  be  made  out.  The  statutes  were  in  many  instan- 
ces absolutely  unjust;  in  others,  not  demanded  by  circumstances ;  in  almost 
all,  prompted  by  religious  bigotry,  by  excessive  apprehension,  or  by  the 
arbitrary  spirit  with  which  our  government  was  administered  under  Eliza- 

VOL.   i.  35 


274  NOTES. 

beth."  — End  of  3d  chap,  of  his  Constitutional  History,  pages  229  and  230 
ofSvo.  edit,  of  1829. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourth  chapter  he  observes,  speaking  of  the  Puritans  :  — 
"  After  forty  years  of  constantly  aggravated  molestation  of  the  noncon- 
forming  clergy,  their  numbers  were  become  greater,  their  prosperity  more 
deeply  rooted,  their  enmity  to  the  established  order  more  irreconcilable." 
He  acknowledges  the  difficulty  of  the  case,  but  observes  —  "  that  the  obsti- 
nacy of  bold  and  sincere  men  is  not  to  be  quelled  by  any  punishments  that 
do  not  exterminate  them,  and  that  they  are  not  likely  to  entertain  a  less 
conceit  of  their  own  reason,  when  they  find  no  arguments  so  much  relied 
on  to  refute  it  as  that  of  force  j  that  statesmen  invariably  take  a  better  view 
of  such  questions  than  churchmen. 

"  It  appears  by  no  means  unlikely,  that  by  reforming  the  abuses  and  cor- 
ruption of  the  spiritual  courts,  by  abandoning  a  part  of  their  jurisdiction,  so 
heterogeneous  and  so  unduly  attained,  by  abrogating  obnoxious  and  at  best 
frivolous  ceremonies,  by  restraining  pluralities  of  benefices,  by  ceasing  to 
discountenance  the  most  diligent  ministers,  and  by  more  temper  and  disin- 
terestedness in  their  own  behaviour,  the  bishops  would  have  palliated,  to  an 
indefinite  degree,  that  dissatisfaction  with  the  established  scheme  of  polity, 
which  its  want  of  resemblance  to  that  of  other  Protestant  churches  must 
more  or  less  have  produced.  Such  a  reformation  would  at  least  have  con- 
tented those  reasonable  and  moderate  persons  who  occupy  sometimes  a 
more  extensive  ground  between  contending  factions  than  the  zealots  of 
either  are  willing  to  believe  or  acknowledge." 


LECTURE  XI. 

FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS. 

IN  my  lecture  of  yesterday  I  concluded  my  observations  on 
the  Reformation. 

I  must  now  turn  to  the  French  history,  and  in  the  following 
lecture  I  must  endeavour  to  give  you  some  general  notion  of 
the  history  of  a  whole  century,  the  sixteenth. 

In  considering  the  first  part  of  this  century,  I  shall  have  to 
notice  the  wars  of  enterprise  and  ambition  carried  on  by  the 
French  monarchs,  Charles  the  Eighth  and  his  successors. 

In  considering  the  second  part  of  the  century,  I  shall  have 
to  allude  to  the  great  subject  of  the  civil  and  religious  wars  of 
France. 

These  transactions  and  events  cannot  be  detailed  in  any 
manner,  however  slight. 

I  can  only  make  general  remarks,  —  first,  on  the  one  period, 
and  then  on  the  other;  mentioning,  at  the  same  time,  such 
books  as  will  furnish  you  hereafter  with  those  particulars  on 
which  I  am  now  obliged  to  comment,  as  if  you  were  entirely 
acquainted  with  them  already. 

We  left  the  French  history  at  the  death  of  Louis  the  Elev- 
enth ;  before,  therefore,  we  arrive  at  the  civil  and  religious 
wars  of  France,  we  must  pass  through  the  reigns  of  Charles  the 
Eighth,  Louis  the  Twelfth,  and  Francis  the  First. 

Of  these  the  reader  will  be  able  to  form  a  very  adequate 
idea  by  reading  the  works  of  Mr.  Roscoe  and  Dr.  Robertson. 
These  reigns  may  also  be  read  in  Mezeray,  a  writer  of  great 
authority.  Or  they  may  be  read  in  Renault,  and  Millot,  and 
Velly,  as  the  rest  of  the  French  history  has  been. 

De  Thou  or  Thuanus,  it  may  be  also  observed,  intro- 
duces his  history  with  a  general  review  of  France  and  the 
state  of  Europe  ;  a  portion  of  his  great  work  that  has  been 


276  LECTURE  XL 

much  admired,  and  then  begins  with  the  year  1546,  a  little 
before  the  death  of  Francis  the  First.  The  lesson  which  may, 
on  the  whole,  be  derived  from  this  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  is,  the  folly,  the  crime,  of  attempting  foreign  con- 
quests ;  this  is  the  leading  observation  I  have  to  offer.  Charles 
the  Eighth  of  France  had  descended  into  Italy,  Louis  the 
Twelfth  must  therefore  do  the  same  ;  so  must  Francis  the  First 
and  Henry  the  Second.  The  honor  of  the  French  nation  was, 
it  seems,  engaged. 

But  Spain,  which  was  becoming  the  great  rival  state  in 
Europe,  chose  also,  like  France,  to  be,  as  she  conceived,  pow- 
erful and  renowned  ;  Ferdinand,  therefore,  and  Charles  the 
Fifth,  and  afterwards  Philip  the  Second,  were  to  waste,  with 
the  same  ignorant  ferocity,  the  lives  and  happiness  of  their  sub- 
jects ;  and  for  what  purpose  ?  Not  to  keep  the  balance  of 
Europe  undisturbed  ;  not  to  expel  the  French  from  Italy,  and 
to  abstain  from  all  projects  of  conquest  themselves  ;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  by  rushing  in,  to  contend  for  the  whole,  or  a  part 
of  the  plunder. 

The  Italians,  in  the  mean  time,  whose  unhappy  country* 
was  thus  made  the  arena  on  which  these  unprincipled  combat- 
ants were  to  struggle  with  each  other,  adopted,  what  appeared 
to  them  the  only  resource,  —  that  of  fighting  the  one  against 
the  other,  —  if  possible,  to  destroy  both  ;  leaguing  themselves 
sometimes  with  France,  sometimes  with  Spain,  and  suffering 
from  each  power  every  possible  calamity  ;  while  they  were 
exhibiting,  in  their  own  conduct,  all  the  degrading  arts  of  du- 
plicity and  intrigue. 

A  more  wretched  and  disgusting  picture  of  mankind  cannot 
well  be  displayed.  All  the  faults  of  which  man,  in  his  social 
state,  is  capable  ;  opposite  extremes  of  guilt  united  ;  all  the 
vices  of  pusillanimity,  and  all  the  crimes  of  courage. 

The  miseries  and  degradation  of  Italy  have  never  ceased 
since  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire.  The  great  misfortune 
of  this  country  has  always  been,  its  divisions  into  petty 
states,  a  misfortune  that  was  irremediable.  No  cardinal  made 

*  There  is  a  well-known  beautiful  sonnet  in  the  Italian,  translated  by  Mr. 
Roscoe,  and  imitated  by  Lord  Byron,  a  Lamentation  that  Italy  had  not  been 
more  powerful  or  less  attractive,  which  I  have  seen  an  Italian  repeat  almost 
with  tears. 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       277 

into  a  sovereign,  could  ever  be  expected  to  combine  its  dis- 
cordant parts  into  a  free  government  ;  and  unless  this  was  done, 
nothing  was  done  :  could  this,  indeed,  have  been  effected,  the 
Italians  might  have  been  virtuous  and  happy. 

Artifice,  and  a  policy  proverbially  faithless,  were  vain  expe- 
dients against  the  great  monarchies  of  Europe.  But  while 
Italy  was  to  be  thus  destroyed  by  these  unprincipled  despoil- 
ers,  what,  in  the  mean  time,  was  to  be  the  consequence  to 
these  very  monarchies  ?  In  Spain,  the  real  sources  of  power 
neglected  ;  immense  revenue  and  no  wealth  ;  possessions  mul- 
tiplied abroad,  and  no  prosperous  provinces  at  home  ;  the 
strength  of  the  country  exhausted  in  maintaining  a  pow- 
erful army,  not  for  the  purposes  of  defence,  but  of  tyranny 
and  injustice  ;  and  the  whole  system  of  policy,  in  every  part, 
and  on  every  occasion,  a  long  and  disgusting  train  of  mistake 
and  guilt. 

In  France,  the  same  neglect  of  the  real  sources  of  strength 
and  happiness  :  the  produce  of  the  land  and  labor  of  the  com- 
munity employed  in  military  enterprises  ;  the  genius  of  the 
nobles  made  more  and  more  warlike  ;  military  fame,  and  the 
intrigues  of  gallantry  (congenial  pursuits),  converted  into  the 
only  objects  of  anxiety  and  ambition  ;  licentiousness  everywhere 
the  result,  in  the  court  and  in  the  nation  ;  the  power  of  the 
crown  unreasonably  strengthened  ;  the  people  oppressed  with 
taxes,  their  interests  never  considered  ;  the  energies  of  this 
great  country  misdirected  and  abused  ;  and  the  science  of  pub- 
lic happiness  (except,  indeed,  in  the  arts  of  amusement  and 
splendor)  totally  unknown  or  disregarded. 

France  and  Spain,  therefore,  concur  with  Italy  in  complet- 
ing the  lesson  that  is  exhibited  to  our  reflection  :  ambition  and 
injustice  have  their  victims  in  the  countries  that  are  invaded 
and  destroyed  ;  and  have  alike  their  victims  in  those  very  in- 
vaders and  destroyers.  Better  governments  in  all,  or  in  any, 
would  have  made  these  evils  less  ;  and  good  governments  are 
thus,  in  all  times  and  situations  of  the  world,  the  common  in- 
terest of  every  state,  as  connected  with  its  neighbours,  and  of 
every  prince  and  people,  as  concerned  in  their  own  individual 
happiness. 

I  now  proceed  to  make  some  general  remarks  on  the  latter 


278  LECTURE  XI. 

part  of  the  century.  The  remaining  half  comprehends,  in 
French  history,  the  era  of  the  civil  and  religious  wars,  an  era 
that  is  peculiarly  interesting  ;  and  the  great  difficulty  is,  to 
prevent  our  minds  from  being  overpowered  and  bewildered  by 
the  variety  of  subjects  which  present  themselves  to  our  exam- 
ination. 

The  events  are  striking  ;  the  actors  splendid  ;  the  interests 
important  ;  and  could  we  see  and  understand  the  scene,  with 
the  rapidity  with  which  we  do  the  dramas  of  Otway  or  of  Shak- 
speare,  the  effect  would  be  even  more  powerful,  and  the  im- 
pression more  lasting. 

But  an  acquaintance  with  a  great,  and  real  tragedy  like  this, 
that  lasted  for  nearly  forty  years,  can  only  be  acquired  by  a 
course  of  reading,  extended  to  a  considerable  length,  and  some- 
what steadily  sustained.  To  say  the  truth,  it  is  more  than 
usually  perplexing  to  know,  on  this  occasion,  what  books  to 
propose.  The  great  historians  of  the  times  are  Thuanus  and 
Davila ;  but  the  work  of  Davila  occupies  a  very  large  folio, 
and  the  history  of  Thuanus  is  extended  through  nearly  six  folios 
in  the  original  Latin,  and  through  nearly  ten  full  quartos  in  the 
French  translation. 

I  must  therefore  explain  what  I  think  may  be  attempted,  and 
what  will,  I  conceive,  be  sufficient.  It  will  be  found,  that  the 
comprehensive  mind  of  De  Thou  undertook,  and  accom- 
plished, the  history  of  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  as  well  as  of 
France,  and  I  therefore  propose  to  you,  to  confine  your  atten- 
tion to  that  part  which  relates  to  the  French  history.  The 
quarto  work,  the  French  translation,  will  be  the  best  to  resort 
to  ;  and  there  will  be  here  no  difficulty  in  selecting  the  history 
of  France  from  the  remainder  of  the  work. 

Again,  a  considerable  part  of  the  narrative  is  employed  on 
the  progress  of  the  civil  wars  in  the  different  provinces  of 
France,  and  on  the  military  operations  of  the  contending  par- 
ties. These  may  now  be  looked  at  very  slightly.  It  is  the 
conferences,  the  assemblies,  the  manifestoes,  the  treaties,  the 
reasonings  and  views  of  the  Huguenots  and  Roman  Catholics, 
to  which  your  observation  should  be  directed. 

Now  these,  though  they  are  detailed,  and  very  properly, 
at  great  length,  by  De  Thou,  do  not,  after  all,  constitute  a 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       279 

mass  of  reading  which  may  not,  and  which  ought  not,  to  be 
undertaken.  Even  here,  some  parts  may  be  considered  far 
less  attentively  than  others,  and  with  these  limitations,  and  on 
this  system,  I  do  not  hestitate  to  recommend  to  your  perusal, 
the  great  work  of  one  of  the  first  of  modern  historians. 

In  like  manner,  Davila  may  be  read  in  parts  ;  the  work  may 
be  referred  to  in  all  the  more  important  particulars,  especially 
with  respect  to  the  views,  interests,  and  intrigues  of  the  differ- 
ent leaders  and  factions.  The  narrative  is  remarkably  unaf- 
fected, perspicuous,  and  complete  ;  and  every  thing  is  so 
easy,  natural,  and  relevant  to  the  subject,  that  the  reader  who 
turns  to  consult  the  work,  will  unavoidably  read  on  and  do 
more,  and  perceive,  that  if  a  character  is  to  be  estimated,  or 
any  particular  event  to  be  understood,  the  account  of  Davila 
must  necessarily  be  considered. 

The  Duke  of  Epernon,  an  actor  in  these  scenes,  is  related 
by  his  biographer  to  have  been  pleased  with  this  history  ;  and 
above  all,  to  have  commended  the  exact  care  which  the 
author  had  taken  to  inform  himself  of  the  secret  motives  by 
which  the  different  parties  and  leaders  were  actuated  at  the 
time. 

But  we  must  not  forget,  that  the  family  of  Davila,  and  him- 
self, were  connected  with  Catherine  de  Medicis  ;  that  he  has 
been  considered  as  her  apologist  ;  that  he  was  an  Italian,  and 
a  soldier  ;  and  that  every  thing  with  him  is,  of  course,  referred 
to  faction  or  to  selfishness.  Ideas  of  civil  or  religious  liberty, 
seem  little  to  have  occurred  to  him  ;  and  the  reader  is  to  con- 
sider his  history  as  supplying  him  with  materials  which  he 
must  combine  with  those  of  other  writers  ;  not  in  any  instance 
as  furnishing  him  with  conclusions  to  which  he  is  to  assent, 
without  due  hesitation. 

De  Thou  is  likewise  an  historian  of  facts  and  of  detail,  but 
his  sentiments  are  generous  and  enlarged  ;  and  the  student, 
while  he  reads  what  men  were,  and  but  too  often  are,  will 
never  be  suffered  to  forget  what  they  ought  to  be. 

French  literature  is  not  so  eminently  distinguished  for  great 
regular  works  of  history,  as  for  memoirs  of  the  great  charac- 
ters of  history.  Books  of  this  kind  are,  of  all,  the  most  amus- 
ing ;  and,  when  inspected  by  a  philosophic  eye,  are  often  well 


280  LECTURE  XI. 

fitted  to  afford  the  most  important  conclusions.  The  memoirs 
of  Brantome  are  of  this  description.  The  writer  is,  of  all 
others,  himself  the  least  of  a  thinker,  or  of  an  instructor  ;  but 
he  goes  on  with  the  most  captivating  rapidity  and  variety, 
often  superficial  and  inconsistent  ;  panegyrizing  every  one  he 
has  to  speak  of,  without  the  slightest  moral  discrimination, 
but  always  supplying  his  reader  with  those  traits  of  character, 
and  peculiarities  of  conduct,  which  render  his  personages 
known  and  familiar  to  us  ;  no  longer  seen  in  the  cabinet  or 
the  field,  but  exhibited  in  the  recesses  of  private  life,  just  as 
they  really  were,  with  all  the  whims  and  follies  that  belong  to 
them. 

The  memoirs  of  Sully  finish  the  portrait  of  these  times,  in 
finishing  for  us,  not  only  the  portrait  of  Henry  the  Fourth, 
but  in  giving  us  many  curious  particulars  respecting  the  prac- 
tical government  of  France,  its  finances,  factions,  and  the 
whole  state  of  its  constitution  and  interests.  The  memoirs, 
indeed,  are  but  a  mass  of  papers,  arranged  by  his  secretaries, 
and  drawn  up  under  his  eyes  ;  and  it  is  much  to  be  lamented, 
that  this  upright  minister  did  not  extend  his  virtuous  activity 
to  the  more  regular  composition  of  a  more  finished  history. 
But  such  as  it  is,  it  is  still  authentic  and  particularly  valuable, 
and  must  be  read.  There  has  been  lately  a  new  edition  and 
translation  of  this  work.  These  are  all  original  works,  and 
in  the  manner  I  have  mentioned,  may  be  perused. 

A  new  edition  of  the  work  of  Brantome  was,  in  1812,  pub- 
lished in  Paris.  It  will  be  far  more  than  supplied  to  an  Eng- 
lish reader,  by  a  work  of  Mr.  Wraxall.  —  u  Memoirs  of  the 
Kings  of  France  of  the  Race  of  Valois,"  which  he  collected 
from  various  writers  of  this  kind,  is  but  too  amusing,  and,  as  a 
companion  to  the  greater  histories,  perfectly  invaluable. 

There  is  also  a  regular  "  History  of  France,"  by  Mr. 
Wraxall,  from  which  the  reader  will  derive  the  greatest  assist- 
ance, while  engaged  with  the  original  works  of  De  Thou  and 
Davila.  It  is  even  quite  necessary  to  him.  The  narrative 
is  drawn  from  many  more  writers  than  could  possibly  be  read, 
or  even  easily  be  consulted  ;  and  the  particulars  (brought 
together  with  great  diligence)  give  a  very  perspicuous  and 
complete  view  of  the  characters  and  events  of  these  times. 


FRANCE.  —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       281 

The  work,  after  having  been  long  neglected,  chiefly,  I  should 
think,  from  the  anxious  and  critical  nature  of  the  times  when 
it  appeared  (1795),  was  republished  by  the  author  in  1814, 
and  enriched,  as  he  supposes,  disfigured,  as  I  conceive,  by 
allusions  to  Buonaparte  and  modern  politics.  This  work  of 
Mr.  Wraxall,  with  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  may  be  sufficient  for 
the  general  reader.  D'Anquetil's  work,  "  L'Intrigue  du  Cabi- 
net," may  be  added. 

Since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  a  work  has  appeared  by  Lacre- 
telle,  his  History  of  France  during  the  Religious  Wars  of 
France. 

This  work,  with  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  may  be  also  suffi- 
cient. The  matter  of  the  first  volume  you  will  find  better  in 
Robertson,  and  so  of  other  parts  of  the  work  in  our  own  his- 
torians :  but  this  part  of  the  French  history,  which  we  are 
considering,  he  gives  in  a  very  concise,  agreeable,  interesting 
manner.  He  touches  upon  the  right  points,  and  will  facilitate 
the  reading  of  other  French  historians,  if  you  choose  to  read 
them  also.  He  is  too  great  a  panegyrist  of  Henry  the  Fourth, 
and  does  not  take  sufficiently  into  account  the  effect  of  the 
religious  principle,  while  explaining  the  history  of  these  times  ; 
that  is,  while  explaining  the  history,  he  seems  not  to  feel  how 
respectable,  how  sublime,  may  be  the  principle,  the  devotion 
to  the  cause  of  sacred  truth  in  many  persons,  while  it  may 
transport  some  men  into  fanaticism,  and  again,  in  others,  may 
be  mixed  with  worldly  considerations.  He  has  something  of 
the  fault  of  Davila,  with  whom  every  thing  is  a  mere  struggle 
of  ambition. 

But  while  this  part  of  the  history  of  France  is  read,  in 
whatever  author,  English  or  French,  the  observations  upon  it 
by  Mably  must  be  studied  :  they  are  more  than  ever  able  and 
important. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  and  I  have  now 
described  such  authors  and  memoirs  as  have  been  always  stud- 
ied by  the  readers  of  history.  But  there  has  lately  appeared 
a  work,  that,  as  far  as  the  general  reader  is  concerned,  may 
be  a  substitute  for  them  all.  It  was  drawn  up  for  the  Theo- 
logical Library  by  the  late  Mr.  Srnedley,  a  most  excellent 
man,  and  a  very  able  writer.  It  consists  of  three  octavo  vol- 
umes, and  gives  the  history  of  the  reformed  church  in  France 
VOL.  i.  36 


282  LECTURE  XI. 

down  to  the  present  times.  It  is  an  extremely  interesting 
and  valuable  work,  beautifully  done,  and  entirely  to  be  recom- 
mended. 

Turning  now  from  the  books  to  be  read  to  such  observa- 
tions as  I  hope  may  be  useful,  I  have  first  to  remark,  that 
these  dreadful  wars  of  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century 
were  of  a  civil  as  well  as  of  a  religious  nature  ;  they  are  called 
the  civil  and  religious  wars. 

I  mentioned,  in  my  lecture  on  the  Reformation,  how  easily 
the  concerns  of  religion  would  mingle  with  the  politics  of  the 
world  ;  how  readily  each  would  act  and  react  upon  the  other  ; 
the  rage  and  rancor  that  must  ensue.  This  was  so  much  the 
case  in  the  instance  of  France,  that  men  appeared  almost  to 
lose  the  common  attributes  of  their  nature.  Some  of  the  lead- 
ing particulars  seern  to  have  been  as  follows. 

The  great  families  in  France,  though  their  free  constitution 
was  no  more,  though  they  might  not  be  controlled  by  any 
prince  of  ability,  who  dispensed  his  favors  with  care,  and  suf- 
fered none  to  become  too  powerful,  were  still  in  themselves 
perfectly  able  to  disturb  the  state  and  to  shake  the  monarchy, 
whenever  a  man  of  great  enterprise  and  genius  appeared 
among  them,  or  whenever  a  weak  prince  was  seated  on  the 
throne. 

Francis  the  First,  though  formed  to  be  the  idol  of  Frenchmen, 
still  carried  on  a  regular  system  of  inspection  over  his  nobles 
and  their  proceedings  in  every  place  and  province  of  France. 
"  Beware,"  he  said,  on  his  death-bed,  to  his  son,  Henry  the 
Second,  "  beware  of  the  Guises  !  "  His  sagacity  was  but  too 
well  shown  by  subsequent  events.  The  historians,  particularly 
Davila,  give  a  clear  description  of  the  court  and  of  the  great 
men  who  were  ready  to  contend  for  power  immediately  on  his 
decease,  and  during  the  reign  of  his  successor,  Henry  the 
Second.  The  chances  of  confusion  were  already  very  suffi- 
cient, but  they  were  still  further  increased  when  Francis  the 
Second  came  to  the  throne,  who  was  not  only  a  minor  and  of 
no  capacity,  but  the  queen-mother  was  Catherine  de  Medicis. 
Charles  the  Ninth  was,  again,  a  minor,  and  again  her  son  ;  and 
she  was  mother  ^sven  to  Henry  the  Third,  who  next  mounted 
the  throne  after  Henry  the  Second  and  Francis  the  Second. 

The   family   of   Guise,    connected   by    marriage   with   the 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.        283 

reigning  family,  produced  distinguished  men,  two  more  par- 
ticularly of  great  genius,  and  of  the  most  aspiring  ambition. 
These  were  the  two  men  whom  Francis  the  First  had  dreaded. 
The  Prince  of  Conde,  as  a  prince  of  the  blood,  conceived  that 
the  administration  naturally  belonged  to  him  ;  the  Constable 
Montmorency,  with  the  ancient  families,  had  the  same  pre- 
tensions ;  and  the  queen-mother  had  unhappily  resolved  to  hold 
the  reins  of  government  herself,  and  therefore  endeavoured  to 
rule  all  competitors  for  authority  by  dividing  and  opposing  them 
to  each  other. 

As  Catherine  was  a  woman  of  great  natural  ability,  and  as 
Charles  the  Ninth  and  Henry  the  Third  were  far  from  being 
devoid  of  it,  it  is  probable  that  the  authority  of  the  crown  might 
still  have  maintained  itself,  and  preserved  a  tolerable  state  of 
peace  and  order  ;  but  it  happened,  most  unfortunately,  that  the 
Prince  of  Conde  was  a  Protestant,  the  constable  a  Roman 
Catholic  ;  the  court  and  the  Guises  were  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
persuasion  also  ;  and  the  people  had  been  inflamed  against  each 
other  by  the  natural  progress  of  religious  differences.  The 
Prince  of  Conde,  therefore,  had  only  to  state  the  grievances 
of  the  Calvinists,  and  to  be  their  leader,  the  Duke  of  Guise  to 
assert  the  supposed  rights  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  to  de- 
clare himself  their  chief,  and  long  wars  of  the  most  extermina- 
ting fury  were  sure  to  be  the  consequence. 

You  will  observe  the  materials  of  destruction  preparing  in 
the  horrible  execution  of  the  Calvinists  by  Francis  the  First, 
and  afterwards  by  Henry  the  Second,  and  in  various  intolerant 
edicts  that  were  from  time  to  time  published. 

There  is  a  book,  the  Edict  of  Nantz,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
which  may  be  found  an  account  of  the  introduction  of  Cal- 
vinism into  France,  and  its  first  persecutions  stated  very  con- 
cisely. 

The  contests,  therefore,  of  civil  and  religious  hate  were  now 
to  begin.  I  cannot  relate  the  facts  ;  I  have  to  observe,  there- 
fore, generally,  —  first,  that  the  commencement  of  wars,  par- 
ticularly of  civil  wars,  must  always  be  interesting  to  every 
reader  cf  reflection.  We  may  turn  away  our  eyes,  when  the 
sword  has  been  once  drawn,  from  the  crimes  and  the  horrors 
that  ensue  ;  but  till  the  first  fatal  act  of  hostility  has  been 
committed,  we  examine  with  care,  we  follow  with  anxiety, 


284  LECTURE  XI. 

the  steps  of  the  contending  parties,  and  we  bless  in  silence 
those  real  patriots,  if  any  there  be,  who  have  breathed,  how- 
ever vainly,  the  sounds  of  forbearance  and  kindness  ;  who  have 
expostulated,  explained,  conciliated,  and  labored,  if  possible, 
to  procure  a  pause. 

Such  sentiments  are  felt  occasionally,  even  by  the  very  ac- 
tors in  the  scene.  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  kind  occurred 
in  this  period  of  the  French  history. 

At  the  moment  when  the  civil  wars  were  on  the  point  of 
breaking  out,  and  each  party  stood  prepared  and  in  arms,  the 
Prince  of  Conde  and  the  queen-mother  had  a  conference  by 
regular  appointment,  to  adjust,  if  possible,  terms  of  mutual  ac- 
commodation. 

Their  followers  were  ordered  to  remain  at  a  distance,  merely 
because  it  was  supposed  that  if  they  approached  each  other, 
some  word,  some  look  of  offence,  might  be  interchanged,  and 
in  an  instant  the  kingdom  become  a  scene  of  blood.  They 
were  contented  awhile  to  obey  their  orders,  but  they  at  last, 
with  great  difficulty,  obtained  leave  to  take  a  nearer  view  of 
each  other,  that  they  might  no  longer  appear  already  occupied 
by  sentiments  of  estrangement  and  suspicion. 

It  was  then  that  nature  prevailed,  for  one  short  and  rea- 
sonable moment,  over  all  the  more  artificial  impulses  of  mis- 
guided opinion  and  military  duty.  They  recognised  each,  in 
the  ranks  of  his  opponents,  his  brother,  his  relation,  or  his 
friend  ;  hostility  and  defiance  were  at  an  end  ;  they  saluted 
each  other,  they  embraced,  they  implored  from  each  other 
mutual  compassion  and  forbearance  ;  they  deprecated  a  war, 
where  to  conquer  was  not  to  triumph  ;  they  mingled  their 
tears,  —  the  tears  of  terror  as  of  affection  ;  of  terror,  lest  the 
next  day  should  see  them,  as  it  did  see  them,  drawn  out  in 
fearful  combat  with  each  other,  to  be  friends  and  brothers  no 
more,  to  destroy,  to  pursue  even  to  agony  and  death,  each  the 
generous  and  gallant  man  that  the  chance  of  battle  presented  to 
his  sword. 

And  why  were  scenes  like  these  to  ensue  ?  The  Prince  of 
Conde  required,  it  seems,  that  the  new  Leaguers  should 
leave  the  court,  and  that  the  late  tolerant  edict  should  be 
observed.  "  The  first  does  not  meet  my  wishes,"  said  the 
queen-mother ;  "  the  second  is  impossible.  Were  we  to 


FRANCE.— CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       285 

think  further  of  this  edict,  all  the  clergy,  a  great  part  of  the 
nobility,  and  almost  all  the  nation,  would  be  against  us."  And 
these  were  the  unhappy  obstacles  in  the  way  of  peace  that 
could  not  be  removed  ! 

If  there  be  any  principle  necessary  to  mankind,  it  is  that 
of  the  civil  obedience  of  the  subject,  that  principle  by  which 
the  single  mind  of  the  ruler  is  able  to  direct  and  control  the 
physical  strength  of  millions  :  if  there  be  any  one  good  that 
is  totally  invaluable  to  our  helpless  condition,  it  is  religion. 
But  there  are  seasons  in  the  history  of  mankind  when  we  are 
tempted  almost  to  wish  that  men  could  be  disrobed  at  once 
of  all  the  distinctions  and  ties  which  belong  to  their  social 
state,  and  thrown  again  into  the  woods  to  take  the  chance  of 
savage  existence,  rather  than  be  suffered  so  frightfully  to 
abuse,  so  intolerably  to  waste,  the  best  materials  of  their  hap- 
piness, and  the  first  blessings  of  their  nature. 

It  is  on  this  account  that  the  wars  of  faction,  and  more  par- 
ticularly, as  in  this  case,  of  religious  faction,  should  be  most 
thoroughly  studied ;  that,  as  much  as  possible,  not  only  the 
nature  of  ambition  should  be  known,  but  the  temptatipns  of 
the  religious  principle,  when  interfering  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  should  be  understood  ;  that,  as  much  as  possible,  man- 
kind may  be  put  upon  their  guard,  not  only  against  their  rulers, 
but  against  themselves  ;  not  only  against  their  own  vices,  but 
against  the  most  virtuous  tendencies  of  their  nature. 

I  now  proceed  to  some  further  comments  on  transactions 
to  which  I  can  in  no  other  way  but  in  this,  of  general  com- 
ment, allude. 

The  great  leading  conclusions  to  be  deduced  from  these 
wars  are  much  the  same  as  have  been  already  drawn  from  the 
prior  history  of  the  Reformation  ;  as, 

1st.  The  slowness  with  which  the  doctrines  of  toleration 
are  comprehended  even  by  the  best  men. 

The  celebrated  Preface  of  Thuanus,  his  Dedication  to 
Henry  the  Fourth,  the  speeches  and  reasonings  of  the  great 
magistrates  of  the  realm,  and  of  all  the  friends  to  order  and 
peace,  such  as  they  are  given  in  his  History,  all  lead  to  this 
conclusion.  Forbearance  to  the  Protestants  is  never  argued 
upon  any  general  principles,  such  as  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment ;  but  upon  the  inefficacy  of  force  and  punishment  to 


286  LECTURE  XI. 

convince  men  of  their  errors.  Good  men,  even  if  sufficiently 
enlightened,  could  probably  then  venture  on  no  other  language, 
and  indeed  naturally  adopted  the  argument  that  admits  of  no 
answer. 

The  parties  themselves  seem  always  to  have  supposed  each 
that  the  other  was  abominable  in  the  sight  of  the  Creator,  and 
that  as  such  they  were  to  be  punished  and  subdued  by  all  who 
had  any  proper  sense  of  religion. 

The  wars  were  repeatedly  closed  and  renewed.  The  court 
and  the  Catholics  could  never  rest  satisfied,  on  the  one  side, 
while  the  Protestants  exercised  their  religion  in  the  face  of 
day  ;  and  the  Protestants,  on  the  other  side,  could  never 
bring  themselves  to  believe  that  they  were  in  a  state  of  proper 
security. 

The  manifestoes,  edicts,  and  mutual  complaints,  indicate 
very  completely  the  particular  nature  of  religious  animosity, 
and  should,  therefore,  be  well  studied. 

2dly.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  concord  were  the  same 
as  they  have  always  been. 

The  questions  to  be  settled  were,  the  exercise  of  public 
worship,  the  payment  of  tithes  to  the  ministers  of  the  prevail- 
ing communion,  the  admission  to  places  of  honor  and  influ- 
ence ;  and  in  these  civil  wars  the  Calvinists  were  so  inferior 
in  strength  to  their  opponents,  that  even  the  education  of  their 
children,  the  rites  of  burial  and  marriage,  the  equal  participa- 
tion of  the  laws,  and  other  similar  considerations,  were  all 
subjects  of  contention.  But  though  always  defeated  in  the 
field,  though  always  inferior  in  number  and  resources  to  their 
opponents,  they  were  never  totally  subdued.  It  is  said  that 
in  number  they  were  not  above  one  tenth  of  the  whole. 

Before  the  civil  wars  began,  they  were  dragged  to  the 
stake  ;  but  during  them,  they  continually  obtained  edicts 
which  rendered  their  existence  more  tolerable.  Like  their 
gallant  and  virtuous  leader,  the  Admiral  Coligny,  they  never 
despaired  of  the  common  cause,  and  were  thus  enabled  to 
procure  something  like  forbearance  and  respect  from  their  un- 
enlightened opponents.  The  sort  of  success  that  they  obtain- 
ed, and  the  injuries  they  inflicted  on  their  adversaries,  are 
calculated  to  teach  mankind  not  only  that  men  cannot  be 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.         287 

influenced  in  their  religious  opinions  by  force,  but  that  every 
sect  is  to  be  managed  (even  on  the  mere  principles  of  worldly 
policy)  with  proper  deference  and  kindness  ;  that  the  objects 
clamored  for  by  the  bigoted  are  not  worth  the  risk  of  such 
contention  as  they  may  occasion  ;  that  men,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  and  with  or  without  success,  will  die  in  support  of 
what  they  think  the  truth ;  and  that  they  may  often  be  en- 
abled thus  to  die,  amid  the  calamities  and  slaughter  of  their 
persecutors. 

3dly.  There  were  conferences  of  divines  to  settle  religious 
differences,  as  in  other  countries,  during  and  after  the  Ref- 
ormation, and  with  the  same  ill  success. 

An  account  of  one  of  them,  where  the  celebrated  Theodore 
Beza  took  a  distinguished  part,  is  given  by  De  Thou.  The 
whole  relation  is  curious  and  instructive.  But  disputations,  like 
these,  what  are  they  ?  Lambert  disputed  before  Henry  the 
Eighth  against  his  bishops,  and  was  defeated.  A  Protestant 
divine  was  in  like  manner  overpowered  before  Henry  the 
Fourth  in  France,  as  would  no  doubt  have  been  a  Roman 
Catholic  divine  before  Elizabeth  in  England. 

Public  disputations  of  this  kind  are  characteristics  of  the  age, 
and  indicative  of  the  natural  tendencies  of  the  human  mind  on 
these  subjects  ;  they  should  therefore  be  considered. 

When  indeed  Henry  the  Fourth  afterwards  announced  that 
he  was  ready  to  be  converted,  if  proper  arguments  could  be 
offered  to  him,  the  reasonings  of  the  Roman  Catholic  divines 
were  successful,  and  they  demonstrated  to  him  the  doctrines  of 
auricular  confession,  the  invocation  of  saints,  and  the  spiritual 
authority  of  the  Papal  see.  These,  it  seems,  were  the  -points 
on  which  the  scruples  of  the  king  had  happened  to  fall.  On 
the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  he  had  no  difficulty. 

All  history  thus  shows,  what  all  theory  announces,  that  spec- 
ulative truth,  particularly  in  religious  questions,  can  be  left  with 
best  advantage  to  the  silent  influence  and  ultimate  decision,  not 
of  creeds  and  councils,  but  of  free  inquiry. 

Again,  there  appeared  in  these  religious  wars  the  same  want 
of  good  faith  that  has  so  often  marked  the  conduct  of  the  ruling 
sect ;  the  same  inextinguishable  resentment  ;  the  same  unwil- 
lingness to  be  satisfied,  while  their  opponents  were  suffered  to 


288  LECTURE  XI. 

appear  in  any  state,  but  that  of  total  degradation  and  submis- 
sion ;  and  then  the  next  lesson  is  this,  that  the  whole  of  the  his- 
tory bears  testimony  to  the  impolicy  of  a  temperament  so  unjust 
and  so  irreligious. 

Even  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  extinguished  not  the 
evil  which  the  court  meant  to  remedy  ;  it  only  made  their  anx- 
ieties, and  perhaps  even  their  dangers,  the  greater. 

Thus  far  the  religious  wars  of  France  seem  to  exhibit  the 
same  features  and  lessons  of  instruction  that  are  presented  by 
other  religious  wars,  whatever  be  the  ruling  sect,  the  Roman 
Catholic  or  the  Protestant ;  but  in  one  respect  these  were  dis- 
tinguishable from  all  others  that  Europe  has  witnessed  ;  their 
more  than  usual  horrors  ;  their  singularly  atrocious  crimes  ;  in 
none  others  were  all  the  charities  and  obligations  of  mankind  so 
violated,  and  all  the  common  principles  of  mercy  and  justice 
so  outraged  and  set  at  nought.  This  seems  to  indicate  not  only 
the  necessity  of  a  free  government  to  humanize  men,  but  also 
that  the  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion  are  of  all 
other  sects  the  most  intolerant  and  cruel. 

The  reason  is,  that  they  are  more  under  the  influence  of  their 
spiritual  guides  ;  and  every  sect  will  be  found  more  or  less  in- 
tolerant and  cruel,  as  this  is  more  or  less  the  case.  A  spiritual 
director,  like  every  human  being,  abuses  the  power  that  is  given 
him.  The  more  unlimited  the  power,  the  greater  the  abuse  ;  and 
whether  it  be  the  Brarnin  in  the  east,  the  Calvinistic  preacher  in 
Scotland,  or  the  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  France  and  Spain, 
the  effect  proceeds  from  the  same  cause,  and  is  proportioned 
to  it. 

The  spiritual  guide,  in  these  cases,  generally  deceives  him- 
self, and  always  deceives  his  follower,  by  considering  the  cause 
in  which  his  passions  have  got  engaged  as  the  cause  of  the 
Deity.  And  yet,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  appears  from  this 
very  history  that  men  may  sometimes  teach  themselves  the  same 
identification  of  their  own  religious  opinions  with  the  cause  of 
the  Deity,  by  the  workings  of  their  own  mind,  even  without 
the  interference  of  any  spiritual  instructor. 

For  instance,  Poltrot  (Vol.  iii.  p.  394.  De  Thou)  assassi- 
nated the  first  Duke  of  Guise.  "  Poltrot  had  embraced,"  says 
the  historian,  "  with  great  ardor,  the  Protestant  faith  ;  and, 
enraged  at  the  success  of  this  great  Catholic  leader,  he 


FRANCE.  —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       289 

resolved  to  destroy  him.  He  had  thrown  himself  on  his  knees 
to  ask  in  prayer  from  the  Almighty  whether  his  design  to  kill 
the  tyrant,"  as  he  called  him,  "  was,  or  was  not,  derived  from 
heaven.  He  had  implored  to  be  accordingly  fortified  in  his 
resolution,  or  not ;  and  he  perpetrated  the  murder  under  the 
belief  that  he  had  been  inspired  to  do  so."  Poltrot  was  a 
Protestant,  and  had  no  spiritual  director  ;  but  Smedley  con- 
siders Poltrot  only  as  a  ruffian,  not  as  a  fanatic.  — P.  263,  vol. 
I.,  of  his  Religious  Wars. 

On  a  principle  of  this  kind,  and  what  is  still  more  dreadful, 
generally  with  the  sanction  of  the  deliberations  and  reasonings 
of  some  priest  or  confessor,  was  the  life  of  Henry  the  Third 
taken  away,  and  that  of  Henry  the  Fourth  several  times  at- 
tempted. 

Even  the  enthusiasm  of  Ravilliac,  who  at  last  assassinated 
Henry  the  Fourth,  though  it  reached  insanity,  was  religious  in- 
sanity ;  so  careful  should  all  religious  men  be  never  to  lose  sight 
for  a  moment  of  their  moral  obligations  ;  if  they  once  do,  it  is 
impossible  to  say  what  point  of  enthusiasm,  or  even  of  guilt, 
they  may  not  reach. 

But  not  only  were  murders  of  this  nature  committed,  but  a 
massacre  (I  allude  to  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew),  a  mas- 
sacre of  every  person  of  consequence  that  belonged  to  the 
inferior  sect,  under  cover  of  a  reconciliation,  was  actually  both 
conceived,  and  almost  entirely  perpetrated  ;  and  that  by  the 
first  people  of  rank  in  France,  regularly  deliberating,  contriving, 
and  executing,  slowly  and  systematically,  what  is  not  pardoned 
to  human  nature  even  in  her  wildest  transports  of  sudden  fury 
and  brutal  folly. 

With  all  the  latitude  that  can  be  imagined  for  civil  and  reli- 
gious hatred,  nothing  but  evidence  totally  irresistible  could  rec- 
oncile the  mind  to  the  belief  of  such  an  astonishing  project  of 
guilt  and  horror. 

The  entire  and  total  separation  and  hatred  that  existed  be- 
tween two  religious  sects  must  have  been  carried  to  an  extent 
now  inconceivable,  or  such  a  scheme  could  never  have  been 
devised,  and  still  less  executed. 

Could  it  have  been  supposed  possible  that  such  a  secret  as 
this  should  have  been  so  kept,  that  a  certain  portion  of  the 
whole  community,  an  entire  description  of  brave  men,  should 

VOL.  i.  37 


290  LECTURE  XI. 

be  slaughtered  in  their  beds  and  in  the  streets  ;  in  the  capital 
and  in  the  provinces,  to  the  amount  of  seventy  thousand  human 
beings,  without  the  slightest  chance  of  combination  or  resist- 
ance against  their  murderers  ?  Yet  such  was  the  fact. 

All  memoirs  and  historians  make  mention  of  this  massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew  ;  and  each  becomes  worth  consulting,  by 
noticing  some  particulars  not  noticed  by  the  rest.  Davila,  at 
other  times  so  interesting  from  his  minuteness,  and  judicious 
minuteness,  disappoints  expectation.  The  subject  could  not 
well  be  dwelt  upon  by  an  historian  like  him,  who  must  have 
wished,  at  least,  to  think  well  of  Catherine,  with  whose 
court  he  had  been  connected.  De  Thou  enters  more  into 
the  detail. 

After  the  first  emotions  of  astonishment,  indignation,  and 
horror  have  subsided,  we  may  perhaps  not  unprofitably  turn  to 
reflect  on  the  manner  in  which  the  perpetrators  of  such  atroci- 
ties could  reconcile  them  (and  they  did  reconcile  them)  to 
their  own  views  of  religion  and  virtue.  Men  on  their  death- 
beds were  known  to  consider  the  part  they  took  in  these  ex- 
traordinary crimes,  as  meritorious  with  the  Deity.  The  mas- 
sacre was  defended  by  reasonings  at  Rome  ;  by  an  oration  of 
the  eloquent  Muretus  ;  by  the  sermons  of  divines,  and  the  apol- 
ogies of  men  in  the  highest  stations  ;  and  even  sanctioned  by 
public  authority  at  Paris. 

The  annals  of  the  world  do  not  exhibit  so  awful  aninstance 
(and  this  is  the  great  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  these  enormities) 
of  the  dangerous  situation  in  which  the  human  mind  is  placed, 
when  it  once  consents,  on  whatever  account,  whether  of  sup- 
posed religion,  or  imagined  duty,  to  depart  from  the  great  and 
acknowledged  precepts  of  morality.  I  must  for  ever  press  this 
point  upon  your  remembrance,  —  the  great  code  of  mercy  and 
justice  impressed  upon  the  human  heart  by  the  Creator,  —  an 
attention  to  it  can  alone  keep  you  safe  from  the  possible  delu- 
sions of  religious  zeal. 

The  Protestant  part  of  Europe  at  the  time,  and  posterity 
ever  since,  have  vindicated  the  rights  of  insulted  reason  and  re- 
ligion. It  is  some  melancholy  consolation  to  observe,  that  even 
the  abominable  court  itself  was,  at  first,  obliged  to  pretend,  and 
their  apologists  since,  that  they  only  anticipated  a  projected 
insurrection  of  the  Huguenots.  Charles  the  Ninth  seems 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.      291 

never  to  have  known  health  or  cheerfulness  again  :  he  had 
pages  to  sing  him  to  sleep  ;  and  he  at  last  died,  ere  his  youth 
had  well  passed  away,  lost  and  destroyed  in  body  as  in  mind, 
and,  if  possible,  an  object  of  compassion. 

It  is  indeed  true,  that  Catherine,  while  urging  on  her  hesitat- 
ing son,  could  quote  a  passage  from  the  sermon  of  the  Bishop 
of  Bitonto,  to  assure  him  that  pity  to  a  heretic  was,  in  fact,  but 
cruelty,  and  cruelty,  pity  !  But  there  were  governors  in  some 
of  the  provinces,  that  replied  to  the  mandate  of  their  sovereign, 
u  We  are  good  citizens,  we  are  brave  soldiers,  but  we  are  not 
executioners."  u  Excidat  ilia  dies,"  said  the  virtuous  De 
Thou,  ashamed  of  his  countrymen, 

"  Excidat  ilia  dies  aevo,  ne  postera  credant 
Secula,  nos  certe  taceamtis  et  obruta  inulta 
Nocte  tegi  propria?  patiamur  crimina  gentis." 

Mankind,  from  a  sense  of  their  common  nature,  might  wish 
the  same. 

Such  seem  the  general  reflections  that  may  occur  to  us 
while  we  are  engaged  in  earlier  parts  of  the  annals  of  this 
period.  But  in  reading  the  history  of  these  civil  and  reli- 
gious wars,  you  must  observe,  that  though  for  some  time  the 
Roman  Catholics  are  united  with  the  court  in  opposition  to 
the  Protestants,  yet  at  length  a  new  scene  opens,  and  the 
contest  is  carried  on  against  the  Protestants,  by  the  Roman 
Catholics  themselves,  with,  or  without  the  assistance  of  the 
court.  The  celebrated  combination,  called  the  u  League," 
makes  its  appearance  ( a  combination  independent  of  the 
crown)  ;  and  the  result  is,  that  the  throne  itself  is  at  last 
shaken,  and  the  crown  nearly  overpowered  by  positive  re- 
bellion. 

This  League,  therefore,  forms  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
these  civil  and  religious  wars,  and  they  may  be  thus  divided 
into  two  parts,  before  and  after  it.  This  last  is,  like  the 
former,  a  portion  of  history  that  should  be  well  studied  ; 
Davila  and  De  Thou,  particularly  Davila,  should  be  carefully 
read.  There  is  also  a  history  of  the  League  by  Maimbourg, 
who  lived  in  the  time  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  He  is  never 
considered  as  a  writer  sufficiently  temperate  ;  his  hatred  of  the 


292  LECTURE  XI. 

Calvinists  was  such,  that  his  representations  must  always  be 
read  with  very  great  caution.  You  have  the  work  of  D'An- 
quetil  on  the  subject. 

The  whole  account  is  very  well  given  by  Wraxall,  and  to 
him  I  refer  you.  You  will  find  in  Lacretelle  a  concise  and  in- 
telligible detail  of  it. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  this  part  of  the  history  is,  that 
the  second  Duke  of  Guise  had  ability  enough  to  get  himself 
considered  as  the  defender  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ; 
to  form  an  union  in  support  of  it,  without  any  authority  from 
the  crown  ;  to  point  the  zeal  of  the  Catholics  against  the 
king  as  an  enemy  to  the  faith  ;  to  avail  himself  of  the  vices 
and  indolence  of  the  prince  ;  and  to  improve  every  favorable 
circumstance  so  successfully,  as  at  last  almost  to  mount  the 
throne  amid  an  insurrection  at  Paris  ;  finally  (though  he  did 
not  then  mount  the  throne),  to  resume  his  plans,  after  the 
king's  escape  from  the  capital,  and  to  urge  on  his  projects, 
till  he  was  at  last  himself  assassinated  by  order  of  the  wretched 
monarch,  who  could  see,  as  he  thought,  no  other  expedient  to 
preserve  longer  his  crown,  his  liberty,  or  his  life. 

Of  transactions  like  these  there  is,  evidently,  no  part  that 
may  not  be  instructive.  I  cannot  enter  into  any  narrative, 
but  I  will,  as  before,  offer  some  general  remarks,  to  be  left 
for  your  consideration,  when  you  come  to  read  the  history 
yourselves.  How,  for  instance,  could  such  an  armed  union 
as  this  of  the  League,  ever  make  its  appearance  without  being 
instantly  put  down  by  the  crown  ?  How  could  it  be  ever 
joined  by  men  who  did  not,  from  the  first,  mean  to  alter  the 
government,  or  at  least  to  change  the  monarch  ? 

Questions  like  these  will  show  you  the  importance  of  these 
transactions,  for  they  involve  in  their  consideration  many 
points  that  will  always  be  of  importance  to  every  good  citizen, 
and  every  good  government  that  can  be  found  among  mankind. 

From  a  note  in  Sully,  where  these  transactions  are  alluded 
to,  .it  may  be  collected,  that  there  are  several  manuscripts  in 
the  king's  library  at  Paris,  that  would  throw  great  light  on  the 
first  origin  and  progress  of  this  unconstitutional  combination. 
But  even  in  Maimbourg,  the  reader  will  find  (and  given, 
apparently,  upon  sufficient  authority)  the  first  draft  of  this 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.      293 

association  (afterwards  called  the  "League,")  which  the  Duke 
of  Guise  caused  to  be  circulated  in  a  part  of  France.  It  is  not 
known  to,  or  at  least  is  not  noticed  by,  the  great  historians  ; 
but  it  appears  to  me  remarkable,  as  enabling  us  to  observe  the 
manner  by  which  men  may  be  gradually  led  from  one  step  to 
another,  till  they  arrive  ultimately  at  positive  rebellion. 

The  terms  of  the  first  association,  as  given  by  Maimbourg, 
not  by  the  great  historians,  appear  to  express  nothing  but 
devotion  to  the  Catholic  religion,  and  loyalty  to  the  monarch. 
The  difficulty  must  always  have  been,  how  to  throw  power 
into  the  hands  of  the  Duke  of  Guise. 

In  the  articles,  therefore,  there  is  a  chief  of  the  League 
mentioned,  and  but  slightly  ;  only  twice  with  any  distinct- 
ness, and  always  in  subordination  to  the  king.  The  strongest 
expression  is  this  :  "  The  chief  of  the  aforesaid  association, 
who  is  Monsieur  D'Humiers,  to  whom  we  promise  to  render 
all  honor  and  obedience,"  &c.  This  chief  might  evidently 
have  been  afterwards  altered,  and  made  the  Due  de  Guise. 
But  in  the  celebrated  formulary  of  the  League,  which  was  at 
last  and  afterwards  circulated  and  signed,  as  it  is  given  by 
Mezeray,  D'Aubigne,  and  Davila,  and  as  it  is  understood  by 
De  Thou,  though  there  is  the  same  spirit  of  devotion  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  of  loyalty  to  the  king,  there  is 
an  unlimited  obedience  distinctly  acknowledged  to  the  head  of 
the  League  ;  and  with  these  remarkable  words  annexed,  u  with- 
out exception  of  persons."  That  is,  an  obedience  was  acknowl- 
edged, unknown  to  the  constitution  of  the  realm,  without 
bounds  ;  and  that  ultimately  attached  itself,  not  to  the  king,  but 
to  the  chief  of  the  League,  and  to  him  alone,  "without  excep- 
tion of  persons." 

Here,  therefore,  is  one  of  those  instances  in  history,  which 
are  to  teach  men  very  carefully  to  watch  over  the  erection  of 
any  power  unknown  to  the  constitution  of  their  country,  —  any 
power  which  may  be  brought  into  competition  with  the  existing 
authorities.  How  careful  they  must  be  on  this  point,  if  they 
really  mean  only  to  improve  that  constitution,  and  do  not  mean 
eventually  to  overthrow  it.  This  is  my  first  observation,  but 
the  history  of  this  League  exhibits,  among  many  lessons,  an- 
other that  may  be  mentioned. 


294  LECTURE  XL 

The  intolerance  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  the  zeal  of  their 
preachers,  was  of  great,  and  indeed  of  indispensable  service, 
to  the  Duke  of  Guise,  in  the  gradual  prosecution  of  his  ambi- 
tious designs.  During  the  first  part  of  the  history  of  these 
civil  wars,  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  enforced  the  doctrines 
of  intolerance  against  the  Protestants,  and  united  with  the 
court ;  that  is,  they  inflamed  the  animosities  of  the  parties,  and, 
in  fact,  did  every  injury  to  the  state  and  to  religion,  that  was 
possible.  During  the  latter  part,  the  same  clergy  were  em- 
ployed in  the  cause  of  the  League,  opposed  to  the  Protestants 
indeed,  and  engaged  in  the  support  of  the  supposed  cause  of 
religion,  but  opposed  to  the  king  also. 

"  The  king  is  no  good  Catholic,"  said  the  preachers.  u  Re- 
ligion will  be  destroyed  among  us."  I  quote  from  the  historian. 
Examples  of  this  kind  in  history  have  taught  statesmen  most 
anxiously  to  deprecate,  at  all  times,  the  interference  of  the  min- 
isters of  religion  in  the  politics  of  the  state. 

Their  zeal  may  be  virtuous,  and  often  is,  but  they  see  every 
thing  through  the  mist  of  that  zeal ;  they  exaggerate,  they  in- 
flame the  people,  they  inflame  themselves  ;  they  set  into  motion 
a  principle  (the  religious  principle,)  against  which,  if  it  once 
becomes  inflamed,  no  other  principle  of  reason  or  propriety 
can  be  successfully  opposed.  They  have  been  naturally  accus- 
tomed to  look  in  one  direction,  and  they  are,  therefore,  though 
men  of  education,  seldom  able  to  take  a  view  sufficiently  ex- 
tended, of  the  general  interests  of  the  community.  This  was 
the  opinion  even  of  Lord  Clarendon. 

Such  statesmen,  therefore,  as  have  meant  ill,  have  often 
converted  men  of  this  sacred  character  into  instruments  to 
serve  their  own  political  purposes ;  and  such  statesmen  as 
have  endeavoured  well,  but  have  too  often  found  them  im- 
pediments to  their  designs.  All  history  enforces  upon  the 
attention  disagreeable  conclusions  of  this  nature,  and  pious 
and  good  men  should  be  aware  of  it ;  though  I  cannot  mean 
that  men,  because  they  are  clergymen,  should  cease  to  be 
citizens.  I  state  the  lessons  and  monitions  of  history,  more 
particularly  of  this  period  of  history.  The  impression  which 
it  had  left  on  the  mind  of  Mr.  Burke  must  have  been  of 
this  kind  ;  for  when  the  late  Dr.  Price,  about  the  begin- 


FRANCE.  —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.       295 

ning  of  the  French  revolution,  preached  a  sort  of  political  dis- 
course at  the  Old  Jewry,  which  he  afterwards  published,  Mr. 
Burke  was  immediately  reminded  of  the  very  times  we  are 
now  considering,  —  the  times  of  the  League  in  France.  He 
mentions  them  along  with  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant,  so 
memorable  in  the  history  of  Scotland  and  England  ;  and  he 
admonishes  the  Doctor,  that  men  like  him,  men  of  his  sacred 
profession,  were  unacquainted  with  the  world,  and  had  nothing 
of  politics  but  the  passions  they  excite. 

Another  observation  must  also  be  made.  The  Duke  of 
Guise  found  a  no  less  effective,  though  more  unworthy,  sup- 
port in  the  king  and  in  the  court  itself,  than  he  did  in  the 
clergy  ;  that  is,  he  found  a  support  in  their  profligacy,  their 
waste  of  public  money,  their  scandalous  disposal  of  places 
of  trust  and  honor,  and  their  total  disregard  of  public  opin- 
ion. 

These  vices  produced  in  the  people  that  effect,  which  they 
have  invariably  done,  and  which  they  can  never  fail  to  do.  It 
is  possible  that  circumstances  may  not  be  sufficiently  critical  to 
produce  exactly  at  the  time,  insurrections  and  revolutions,  but 
the  materials  for  these  most  dreadful  calamities  are  always 
ready,  when  such  flagitious  conduct  has  been  at  all  perse- 
vered in. 

The  great  on  these  occasions  have  no  right  to  blame  the 
populace  ;  they  have  themselves  first  exhibited  the  vices  and 
crimes,  to  the  commission  of  which  they  were  more  particular- 
ly liable  ;  and  the  vulgar  do  no  more,  when  they  break  out,  in 
their  turn,  into  acts  of  brutality  and  ferocity.  Manners  and 
principles  are  propagated  downwards,  and  on  this  account  the 
lower  orders,  to  a  considerable  extent,  become  what  they  are 
made  by  the  example  of  their  superiors.  This  example  may 
be  vicious,  or  may  be  virtuous  ;  in  either  case,  it  cannot  but 
have  influence. 

Lastly,  I  must  remark,  that  there  are  several  parts  of  this 
history  of  the  League,  that  seem  almost  to  have  announced  to 
us,  two  centuries  ago,  the  unhappy  events  of  modern  times. 

When  we  turn,  for  example,  to  the  account  of  the  day  of 
the  barricadoes  in  Paris,  we  have  the  siege  of  the  Louvre,  the 
Swiss  guards,  the  flight  of  the  king,  the  tumultuous  capital,  the 


296  LECTURE  XI. 

committees,  and  other  particulars,  that  might  almost  lead  us  to 
imagine,  that  we  were  but  reading  a  detail  of  the  transactions 
that  lately  took  place  in  the  very  same  metropolis  ;  that,  in 
fact,  we  were  engaged  in  the  perusal  of  the  horrors  of  the 
French  revolution. 

Such  are,  I  think,  some  of  the  general  reflections  which  be- 
long to  these  civil  and  religious  wars  in  France,  in  both  their 
different  stages,  before  and  after  the  project  of  the  League. 

I  must  now  leave  you  to  read  the  history  for  yourselves. 
I  may  observe,  indeed,  before  you  do  so,  that  these  scenes 
have  been  always  recommended  to  the  interest  and  curiosity 
of  mankind,  not  only  because  they  have  exhibited  in  the 
strongest  manner,  the  workings  of  the  two  great  passions  of 
civil  and  religious  hate,  but  because  times  so  extraordinary 
were  calculated  to  produce,  and  did  produce,  characters  the 
most  extraordinary  ;  fierce  crimes,  unbridled  licentiousness, 
but  accompanied  with  great  courage  and  ability  in  the  one  sex, 
and  with  genius  and  spirit  in  the  other.  These  have  always 
more  particularly  marked  this  singular  era,  and  have,  therefore, 
had  a  charm  for  the  readers  of  history,  not  derived,  I  fear, 
from  any  very  respectable  desire  either  of  philosophic  enter- 
tainment or  instruction. 

Brantome  has  been  always  read,  but  in  the  Memoirs  of  the 
House  of  Valois,  by  Wraxall,  may  be  found  an  ample  speci- 
men of  the  characters  and  anecdotes  which  belong  to  this 
part  of  history  ;  and  you  may  in  this  work  occupy  yourselves 
more  than  sufficiently  in  a  species  of  reading,  by  which  every 
one,  I  fear,  may  be  amused,  and  no  one,  I  am  sure,  can  be  im- 
proved. 

I  must  here  close  my  account  of  these  civil  and  religious 
wars,  which  will  be  found,  when  perused,  too  busy  in  events, 
and  too  fertile  in  character,  to  be  treated  in  any  other  but  this 
indistinct  and  general  manner. 

But  as  the  student  is  thus  supposed  to  approach  the  great 
subject  of  the  civil  and  religious  wars,  by  which  in  France, 
and  everywhere  in  Europe,  these  ages  were  distinguished,  I 
cannot  conclude  this  part  of  my  lecture,  without  making  one 
observation  more,  however  obvious  ;  it  is  this  :  that  the  the- 
atre of  the  world  is  not  the  place  where  we  are  to  look  for 


FRANCE.  —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.     297 

religion  ;  her  more  natural  province  must  ever  be  the  scenes 
of  domestic  and  social  life  :  too  elevated  to  take  the  lead  in 
cabinets  or  camps,  to  appear  in  the  bustle  and  ostentation  of  a 
court,  or  the  tumults  of  a  popular  assembly,  amid  the  struggles 
of  political  intrigue,  or  the  vulgar  pursuits  of  avarice  and  am- 
bition, Religion  must  not  be  judged  of  by  the  pictures  that 
appear  of  her  in  history.  The  form  that  is  there  seen  is  an 
earthly  and  counterfeit  resemblance,  which  we  must  not  mis- 
take for  the  divine  original. 


VOL.  i.  38 


LECTURE  XII. 

HENRY  THE  FOURTH,  AND  THE  LOW  COUNTRIES. 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  made  some  remarks  on  the  civil  and 
religious  wars  of  France,  before  and  during  the  League.  The 
reign  of  the  celebrated  Henry  the  Fourth  forms  the  concluding 
part  of  this  remarkable  era. 

The  great  historical  French  work,  on  the  subject  of  his  life 
and  reign,  is  by  Perefixe  ;  but  De  Thou,  Sully,  Mably, 
L'Intrigue  du  Cabinet,  with  Wraxall,  will  be  the  best  authors, 
as  I  conceive,  to  recommend  to  your  attention.  You  may 
read  Lacretelle  ;  he  is  too  favorable.  You  may  in  these  works 
read  the  narrative  of  his  eventful  life.  I  cannot  enter  into  it. 
A  few  general  observations  on  the  whole  is  all  that  I  can 
attempt  to  offer. 

The  situation  of  Henry,  while  mounting  the  throne  of  France, 
was  so  beset  with  difficulties,  that,  as  we  read  the  history,  we 
can  scarcely  imagine  how  he  is  ever  to  become  successful, 
though  we  already  know  that  such  was  the  event.  He  was  a 
Huguenot,  and  the  nation  could  not  therefore  endure  that  he 
should  be  king  ;  he  had  been  leagued  with  Henry,  the  former 
king,  while  that  prince  was  stained  with  the  blood  of  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  the  great  object  of  national  admiration  ;  he  had  a 
disputed  title  ;  an  able  and  experienced  general  to  oppose  him 
in  Mayenne,  the  brother  of  the  murdered  Guise,  backed  by  a 
triumphant  party,  and  by  the  furious  Parisians.  Lastly,  he 
was  exposed  to  the  hostile  interference  of  one  of  the  most 
consummate  generals  that  ever  appeared,  the  Duke  of  Parma, 
at  the  head  of  the  Spanish  infantry,  then  the  first  in  the  world. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Henry,  with  some  assistance  from 
fortune,  fairly,  slowly,  and  laboriously,  won  and  deserved  his 
crown. 

This  part  of  the  history  is  well  given  by  Wraxall,  from  De 
Thou  and  others. 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  299 

But  Henry  had  not  only  to  win  the  crown,  but  to  wear  it  ; 
not  only  to  acquire,  but  preserve  it. 

Now  the  great  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  Henry's  life  is,  the 
wisdom  of  generous  policy,  the  prudence  of  magnanimity.  To 
these  he  owed  his  success.  There  was  nothing  narrow  in  his 
views,  no  ungovernable  animosity  that  rankled  in  his  memory  : 
he  forgot,  he  forgave,  he  offered  favorable  terms,  he  negotiated 
with  all  the  fearless  liberality  of  an  elevated  mind.  The  path 
of  honorable  virtue  was  here,  as  it  always  is,  that  of  true  poli- 
cy, that  of  safety  and  happiness.  The  result  was,  that  he  was 
served,  by  men  who  had  been  opponents  and  rebels,  more  faith- 
fully than  other  princes  have  been  by  their  favorites  and  de- 
pendents. 

Henry  has  always  been,  and  with  some  justice,  the  idol  of 
the  French  nation.  But  in  his  private  life,  two  fatal  passions 
reduce  him  (great  as  he  was  in  public)  to  a  level  with  his  fellow 
mortals,  and  sometimes  far  below  them. 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  virtuous  Sully  remonstrated  against  his 
passion  for  play.  Again,  Henry  seems  never  to  have  sus- 
pected that  domestic  comfort  was  only  to  be  purchased  by  do- 
mestic virtue.  In  respect  of  the  Princess  of  Conde  such  was 
his  licentious  nature,  such  the  result,  as  is  always  the  case,  of 
the  long  indulgence  of  his  passions,  that  he  is,  in  this  affair,  as 
far  as  I  can  understand  the  history,  very  little  to  be  distin- 
guished from  a  mere  violent  and  unprincipled  tyrant. 

The  name  of  Henry  the  Fourth  may  remind  us  of  a  cele- 
brated work,  the  Henriade  of  Voltaire.  This  extraordinary 
writer  was  allowed  to  be  a  poet  by  Gibbon,  and  an  historian  by 
Robertson.  The  poem  will  exhibit  him  in  both  capacities. 
It  should  be  read  immediately  after  reading  the  history  of  these 
times.  Thus  read,  it  will  strike  the  judgment,  and  refresh  the 
knowledge  of  the  student,  while  it  exercises  his  taste,  and,  to  a 
certain  degree,  animates  his  imagination.  The  work  was  con- 
sidered by  its  author  merely  as  a  poem,  and  not  a  history  ;  but 
it  is  now  chiefly  valuable  for  the  descriptions  which  it  gives  of 
the  great  characters  and  events  of  these  times,  drawn  with  great 
beauty  and  force,  and  evidently  by  the  pencil  of  a  master.  It 
will  be  found  very  entertaining,  read  in  the  way  I  propose. 
On  the  whole,  the  striking  scenes  of  this  celebrated  period  in 


300  LECTURE  XII. 

French  history  (the  period  of  the  sixteenth  century),  attach 
powerfully  on  our  attention  ;  but  we  must  never  forget  to  re- 
mark those  incidents  which  paint  the  manners,  laws,  and  con- 
stitution of  any  people  whose  annals  we  are  reading.  Inci- 
dents of  this  kind  may  be  found,  —  many  of  them  in  De 
Thou,  some  in  Davila,  many  more  in  very  inferior  authors, 
such  as  L'Etoile.  Every  information  of  this  sort  is  collected 
with  great  diligence  and  propriety  of  selection  by  Wraxall  : 
a  large  part  of  his  work  is  very  properly  dedicated  to  the 
delineation  of  the  arts,  manners,  commerce,  government,  and 
internal  situation  of  society  ;  first,  under  the  later  princes  of 
the  House  of  Valois,  and,  secondly,  during  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Fourth. 

This  author  does  not  seem  to  have  studied  the  science  of  po- 
litical economy  with  the  same  diligence  which  he  has  exerted 
in  his  more  immediate  department  of  history  ;  and  therefore 
his  conclusions  on  these  subjects  must  be  read  with  great  cau- 
tion. The  science  seems  to  have  been  still  more  unknown  to  the 
statesmen  and  historians  of  France  ;  it  is  therefore  difficult  to 
understand  their  reasonings,  or  benefit  by  their  remarks,  when 
such  matters  are  touched  upon. 

The  facts  and  anecdotes  of  these  times,  which  Wraxall  has 
collected,  exhibit  a  most  afflicting  picture  of  licentiousness  and 
vice.  The  historian  is  obliged  to  acknowledge,  that  he  can 
only  find  three  virtues  then  in  existence,  —  courage,  friendship, 
and,  what  could  be  less  expected,  ct  filial  obedience  "  ;  a  scanty 
catalogue,  which  it  seems  cannot  be  enlarged.  Yet.  was  this  the 
age  of  religious  wars  !  So  much  more  easy  it  is  to  contend 
about  religion,  than  to  practise  it. 

The  arts  of  luxury  and  splendor  seem  to  have  been  fully  dis- 
played in  the  courts  and  castles  of  the  great  barons.  The 
peasants  and  lower  orders  were,  in  the  mean  time,  lost  in 
wretchedness  and  ignorance,  and  debased  by  oppression. 
Even  the  higher  orders  themselves,  amid  all  their  costly  ex- 
cesses, were  exposed  to  many  evils  and  inconveniences  which 
we,  of  the  present  day,  should  consider  as  quite  inconsistent 
with  our  personal  comfort.  So  different  is  the  wealth  of  a 
country  from  the  riches  of  a  court  :  so  different  the  progress  of 
the  more  costly  arts,  from  the  general  improvement  of  society. 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  301 

After  the  personal  character  of  Henry,  the  events  of  his 
reign,  and  the  manners  of  the  times,  have  been  considered, 
the  last  and  great  object  of  inquiry  is  the  constitution  of 
France.  If  this  had  received  any  improvement,  however 
dreadful  might  have  been  the  effects  of  these  civil  and  religious 
wars  in  other  respects,  the  prospect  of  future  happiness  to  this 
great  kingdom  would  have  been  still  open. 

What,  therefore,  we  ask,  had  been  the  fortunes  of  the 
states-general  ?  The  answer  may,  unhappily,  be  given  in  the 
description  in  the  Henriade  :  —  "  Inefficient  assemblies  where 
laws  were  proposed,  rather  than  executed,  and  where  abuses 
were  detailed  with  eloquence,  but  not  remedied." 

The  public  seem,  indeed,  to  have  felt  the  weight  of  taxes  ; 
and  complaints  and  representations  were  made  in  these  assem- 
blies, which  in  this  manner  occasionally  reached  the  throne 
itself.  At  two  different  periods,  in  1576,  and  still  more  in 
1588,  an  opportunity  was  offered  of  at  least  some  effort  for 
the  general  good,  but  in  vain.  The  images  of  liberty  had 
been  too  long  withdrawn  from  the  eyes  of  the  nation  ;  and  no 
reasonable  ideas  on  the  subject  seem  to  have  been  entertained 
by  any  leader  or  description  of  men  in  the  state. 

Even  the  religious  reformers  seem  not  in  France  to  have 
felt  in  themselves,  or  to  have  endeavoured  to  excite  in  the 
minds  of  their  countrymen,  any  of  those  principles  of  civil 
liberty,  which  so  honorably  distinguished  them  in  other  parts 
of  Europe. 

In  the  constitution  of  France,  the  only  part  of  the  system 
which  the  reader  can  fix  upon,  as  yet  of  consequence  to  the 
cause  of  civil  liberty  ;  the  only  body  from  which  any  thing 
could  yet  be  hoped,  was  the  parliaments.  These  assemblies, 
particularly  that  of  Paris,  seem  continually  to  have  offered  a 
sort  of  yielding  resistance  to  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  crown  ; 
to  have  been  ever  ready  to  assert  privileges  (to  assert  or 
create  them)  which  might,  eventually,  be  of  decisive  impor- 
tance to  the  nation  :  for  instance,  they  acquired,  or  retained, 
the  prerogative  of  registering  the  edicts  of  the  king.  In  the 
exercise  of  this  prerogative,  a  most  important  one,  it  is  true 
they  always  accommodated  themselves  to  the  wishes  of  the 
monarch,  whenever  he  insisted  upon  their  compliance  :  still 


302  LECTURE  XII. 

the  prerogative  itself  remained  in  existence  ;  royal  edicts,  after 
all,  were  not  exactly  laws  :  they  became  so,  only  when  the 
parliaments  had  given  them  a  last  sanction,  by  consenting  to 
register  them. 

Here,  then,  lay  the  great  secret  of  the  constitution  ;  how 
far  the  king  could  legally  compel  this  acquiescence  ;  and  here 
was  fixed  the  proper  engine  of  constitutional  control  or  resist- 
ance. You  will  see  its  importance  when  you  come  to  read 
the  history  of  the  French  Revolution. 

On  this  subject  of  the  constitution,  facts  and  information 
may  be  taken  from  Wraxall,  and  above  all  from  Sully,  who  is 
an  original  author  and  full  of  them  :  but  principles  and  reason- 
ings must  be  drawn  from  the  Abbe  de  Mably. 

The  value  of  a  national  representation,  as  an  instrument  of 
taxation,  even  to  the  crown  itself,  may  be  seen  in  the  history 
of  France.  The  monarch,  it  is  true,  could  issue  edicts,  but 
the  taxes  were  intercepted  by  the  collectors  of  them  ;  though 
the  subject  paid  much,  the  crown  received  little.  Arbitrary 
power  is  not  favorable  to  the  real  affluence  of  the  sovereign. 
For  the  same  notions  in  the  people  and  in  the  monarch  that 
lead  to  arbitrary  power,  lead  to  abuses  of  every  description  ; 
compulsory  loans,  venality  of  offices,  demands  of  free  gifts, 
rapacious  exactions  from  opulent  traders,  destructive  imposi- 
tions, and  anticipations  of  revenue  ;  habits  of  expense,  improv- 
ident management,  and  a  universal  system  of  waste  and  pecu- 
lation. 

But  it  is  in  this  manner  that  all  the  sources  of  national  reve- 
nue are  destroyed  ;  and  if  the  revenue  be  not  produced,  the 
monarch  cannot  have  a  part  of  it. 

It  was  in  vain  for  the  prince,  even  if  patriotic,  to  endeavour 
to  introduce  economy  into  his  household  and  expenses  :  a 
large  sum  might  be  collected  in  such  a  country  as  France,  by 
a  minister  like  Sully,  under  a  king  like  Henry  the  Fourth  ; 
but  the  Memoirs  of  Sully  himself  resound  with  the  king's  em- 
barrassments and  poverty. 

The  whole  organization  of  society,  from  the  throne  down 
to  the  cottage,  if  the  government  be  arbitrary,  is  always,  to 
the  purposes  of  a  royal  exchequer,  unfavorable  ;  every  in- 
strument that  the  monarch  can  employ  is,  more  or  less,  a 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  303 

bad  one.  The  monarch  and  court,  by  the  absence  of  all  ap- 
parent criticism  from  public  assembles,  themselves  lose  the 
necessary  discipline  and  support  of  virtue.  They  become  them- 
selves, and  every  one  around  them  and  below  them,  expensive 
and  depraved,  profuse  and  needy. 

The  great  accusation  to  be  brought  against  Henry  is,  that 
he  did  nothing  for  the  liberties  of  France,  nothing  for  its  con- 
stitution. He  never  attempted  to  turn  to  the  best  advantage 
such  a  means  of  improvement  as  might  still  have  been  found  in 
the  states-general.  He  labored  to  be  a  father  to  his  people, 
but  only  because  it  was  his  own  good  pleasure  to  be  so  ;  he 
forgot  that  the  power  which  he  directed  to  the  benefit  of  his 
subjects  was  to  descend  to  others  ;  and  that  it  was  one  thing 
for  a  nation  to  have  a  good  king,  and  another  to  have  a  good 
constitution. 

There  are  two  services,  however,  which  he  rendered  to  the 
constitution  of  France,  and  that  by  his  own  merits.  First,  he 
prevented  the  renewal  of  the  government  of  the  fiefs.  The 
great  nobles  were  made  so  powerful  by  the  civil  wars,  their 
followers  so  familiarized  to  arms,  all  order  and  law  so  banished 
from  the  kingdom,  and  the  governors  of  provinces  were  pos- 
sessed of  powers  so  vast  and  dangerous,  that  independent  sov- 
ereignties might  probably  have  been  established,  if  Henry  the 
Fourth  had  not  been  on  the  throne  during  the  first  very  critical 
years  that  succeeded  to  the  assassination  of  Henry  the  Third. 
Considerable  efforts  were  made  by  some  of  the  great  leaders 
to  have  their  governments  made  hereditary,  even  while  Henry 
the  Fourth  was  their  monarch,  armed  with  all  his  advantages  of 
talents  and  success.  The  hereditary  governments,  if  once  es- 
tablished, might  readily  have  assumed  the  nature  and  privileges 
of  independent  sovereignty,  and  the  country  been  broken  up 
and  ruined. 

Secondly,  he  procured  for  the  Protestants  the  edict  of 
Nantz.  The  promulgation  of  this  edict  must  be  considered  as 
a  sort  of  conclusion  of  the  religious  wars  ;  wars  which,  for 
nearly  forty  years,  desolated  France,  and  had  more  than  real- 
ized the  dreadful  pictures  of  Tacitus,  even  when  describing  the 
worst  times  of  the  worst  people. 

This  celebrated  edict  will  surely  attract  the  curiosity  of  every 
reflecting  mind. 


304  LECTURE  XII. 

I  have  already  mentioned  a  work  under  the  title  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantz  ;  and  recommend  the  perusal  of  the  first  book.  I  now 
recommend  the  fifth,  which  will  give  the  reader  a  very  adequate 
idea  of  the  times  and  of  the  subject.  The  edict  itself  is  at  the 
end  of  the  first  volume,  and  may  be  easily  read.  It  consisted 
of  ninety-two  general  articles,  and  these  followed  by  fifty-six 
secret  articles. 

After  all  these  have  been  considered,  the  observations  of  the 
Abbe  de  Mably  may  be  attended  to. 

The  Protestants,  —  the  inferior  sect,  —  made  the  usual  de- 
mands ;  and  the  Roman  Catholics  the  usual  objections.  The 
points  in  debate  comprehended  all  the  accustomed  difficulties. 
At  length,  by  the  articles  of  the  edict,  (VI.  IX.  X.)  the 
Protestants  were  allowed  to  live  everywhere  in  France  without 
molestation  on  account  of  their  private  religious  tenets  ;  and 
publicly  to  enjoy  (XIV.)  the  exercise  of  their  religion  in  par- 
ticular places,  though  not  in  the  metropolis,  or  within  a  certain 
distance  of  it.  You  will  look,  I  hope,  at  these  articles,  particu- 
larly the  secret  articles. 

I  cannot  further  allude  to  them  as  I  could  wish  to  do,  for  in 
this  lecture,  as  in  every  other,  I  am  restricted  to  a  certain  time  ; 
but  I  must  at  least  point  out  to  you  the  twenty-seventh  article, 
which  is  to  us  more  particularly  interesting,  as  the  policy  of 
our  own  country  has  been  different,  and  as  the  wisdom  of  our 
policy  has  been  very  reasonably  disputed. 

By  the  twenty-seventh  article  of  the  edict,  the  Protestants 
(the  Dissenters  in  France)  were  rendered  eligible  to  all  offices 
without  exacting  any  other  oath  from  them  ;  but  (I  quote  the 
article)  "  well  and  faithfully  to  serve  their  king  in  the  dis- 
charge of  their  offices,  and  to  observe  the  ordinance,  as  it  has 
been  observed  at  all  times  ; "  that  is,  the  test  was  civil,  not 
religious.  Our  policy,  as  seen  in  our  corporation  and  test  acts, 
is  different. 

These  are  so  contrived,  that  with  us  Roman  Catholics  and 
Dissenters  are  necessarily  excluded  from  offices  ;  for  they  are 
required  to  take  the  sacrament  after  the  manner  of  the  Church 
of  England  ;  i.  e.  the  test  is  religious. 

The  humanity  and  philosophy  of  the  Abbe  de  Mably  take 
fire  when  he  comes  to  notice  this  celebrated  edict.  To  estab- 
lish (he  observes)  a  solid  peace  between  the  two  religions,  there 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  305 

ought  to  have  been  established  between  them  a  perfect 
equality. 

If  the  Protestants  were  feared,  no  exercise  of  their  religion 
could  have  been,  he  contends,  too  public.  Their  preachings 
were  otherwise  to  be  rendered  always  the  hot-beds  of  intrigue, 
cabal,  and  fanaticism.  Henry,  he  adds,  should  have  called 
the  states-general ;  made  the  parties  produce  and  discuss  their 
claims  ;  then  have  mediated  between  them  and  formed  a  law,  — 
the  law  of  the  whole  nation. 

To  views  and  observations  like  these,  the  history  itself, 
and  all  history,  is  a  melancholy  but  sufficient  answer.  It  is 
only  astonishing  that  after  such  scenes  as  had  taken  place, 
Henry  could  accomplish  what  he  did.  Insufficient  as  it  may 
seem  to  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  it  was  not  effected  without  the 
most  meritorious  exertions  on  his  part,  and  the  assertion  of  all 
his  authority,  with  both  laity  and  clergy,  particularly  the  latter. 

Had  he  called  the  states-general  he  would  only  have  dig- 
nified and  organized  the  opposition  which  he  could  scarcely, 
with  the  assistance  of  ihe  most  favorable  circumstances,  over- 
power. Like  a  real  statesman  he  was  resolved  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  benefit  of  his  country,  but  was  contented,  when 
he  had  done  what  seemed  practicable  ;  when,  in  short,  he  had 
made  the  best  of  his  materials.  It  was  sufficient  for  him,  as 
it  must  often  be  for  others,  to  have  laid  the  germ  of  future  im- 
provement, which  was  to  ripen,  if  succeeding  times  were 
favorable  ;  if  otherwise,  to  perish. 

"See  nations  slowly  wise,  and  meanly  just." 

The  account  which  Sully  gives  of  these  memorable  trans- 
actions is  very  imperfect  and  inadequate  to  their  importance. 

De  Thou  is  more  satisfactory  ;  but  even  by  him  the  subject 
seems  not  to  have  been  properly  comprehended.  You  will 
have  some  idea  of  it  from  Lacretelle.  Some  reforms  were, 
however,  accomplished  by  Henry  and  Sully. 

The  merits  of  Henry  the  Fourth  had  an  easy  conquest  over 
the  French  nation  ;  for  he  restored  them  to  peace  after  the  ca- 
lamities not  only  of  civil  war,  but  of  civil  and  religious  war. 
Favored  by  fortune,  and  recommended  by  great  merit,  Henry 
became  at  once,  and  has  always  remained,  the  object  of  uni- 
versal admiration. 

VOL.  i.  39 


306  LECTURE  XII. 

It  seems  but  too  generally  forgotten  that  Henry  made  no 
attempt  to  revive  the  constitution  of  his  country.  The  peo- 
ple of  France  themselves  seem  never  to  have  objected  this 
most  important  fault  to  him. 

Mankind,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  ever  running  headlong 
in  their  feelings  of  praise  and  censure,  and  they  seem  almost 
justified,  when  they  give  the  free  reins  to  their  confidence  and 
affections  in  favor  of  princes,  who  have  been  their  deliverers 
and  protectors. 

But  it  is  unhappily  on  occasions  like  these,  after  revolu- 
tions or  great  calamities,  that  a  nation  loses,  as  did  the  French, 
as  did  the  English  at  the  restoration  of  Charles  the  Second, 
all  care  of  its  laws,  its  privileges,  and  its  constitution.  It 
thinks  only  of  the  horrors  of  the  past,  and  of  the  compara- 
tive enjoyments  of  the  present ;  slavery  itself  is  a  comfort 
when  compared  with  the  miseries  that  have  been  endured  ; 
and  good  princes  as  well  as  bad  princes  have  converted  to  the 
purposes  of  their  own  power  these  thoughtless  but  natural 
sentiments,  in  a  fatigued,  terrified,  and  scarcely  yet  breathing 
people. 

No  periods  have,  therefore,  been  so  dangerous  to  the  civil 
liberties  of  a  country.  What  Louis  the  Eleventh  had  effected 
was  now  willingly  confirmed  ;  and  the  whole  French  nation,  — 
a  nation  of  civilized  men,  quick  in  intelligence,  ardent  in  senti- 
ment, prodigal  in  courage,  and  the  descendants  of  the  Franks,  — 
contented  themselves  with  the  political  blessings  of  the  hour, 
and  in  the  virtues  of  their  monarch,  without  thinking  of  the 
future,  reposed  that  confidence  which  should  only  have  been 
given  to  some  free  form  of  government ;  some  form  of  govern- 
ment where  their  states-general,  the  proper  images  of  them- 
selves, had  been  combined  with  the  executive  power,  and  both 
harmonized  into  a  regular  constitution,  for  the  permanent  ben- 
efit as  well  of  the  prince  as  of  the  people. 

Before  I  quit  this  subject,  I  must  again  recommend  to  you 
an  account  lately  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Smedley,  a  history  of  the 
Reformed  Religion  in  France.  The  work  will  tell  you  every 
thing  that  it  is  necessary  to  know  respecting  the  religious  part 
of  the  history  of  these  times. 

We  must  now  turn  to  a  scene  that  will  have  been  often 
presented  to  us  indirectly  during  our  perusal  of  these  civil 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  307 

and  religious  wars  in  France,  the  contest  between  Philip  the 
Second  and  his  Dutch  and  Flemish  subjects  ;  the  progress 
of  the  Reformation  in  the  Low  Countries. 

We  are  furnished  with  sufficient  materials  for  understanding 
these  interesting  transactions. 

We  have  the  Protestant  historian,  Grotius  ;  the  Catholic 
historian,  Bentivoglio  ;  and  a  very  full  detail  from  the  Cath- 
olic historian,  Strada.  These  may  be  considered  as  authors 
living  at  the  time.  We  have  also  a  very  full  history  of  the 
Reformation  by  Brandt,  who  lived  half  a  century  afterwards, 
when  the  truth  might  be  still  more  completely  ascertained  ; 
and  lastly,  we  have  our  own  historian,  Watson,  who,  from 
these  and  other  sources,  has  drawn  up  his  own  unaffected 
and  valuable  narrative.  The  whole  will  divide  itself  naturally 
into  a  few  different  portions  corresponding  with  the  different 
governors  and  changes  of  system  adopted  by  the  court  of 
Spain. 

But  the  most  instructive  is  the  first.  The  interval  that 
elapsed  while  the  Netherlands  were  gradually  advancing  to 
rebellion,  and  while  Philip  was  endeavouring  to  establish  his 
fatal  system  of  coercion  and  intolerance. 

Now,  although  the  original  authors  I  have  mentioned  may 
be  more  or  less  freely  consulted  through  the  whole  of  the 
contest,  I  would  recommend  that  they  should  be  entirely 
perused  while  they  give  the  history  of  this  first  period  ;  the 
period  which  preceded  the  first  appearance  of  the  Duke  of 
Alva  in  the  Netherlands. 

It  is  somewhat  amusing,  but  it  is  surely  edifying,  to  observe 
the  difference  of  tone  and  sentiment  in  the  Catholic  and  Pro- 
testant writers.  ,  Grotius  and  Brandt  speak  a  language  con- 
sistent with  civil  and  religious  freedom,  as  might  be  expected  ; 
while  with  the  other  historians  all  resistance  to  the  civil  powers 
is  faction  and  rebellion  ;  all  controversy  with  the  church,  im- 
piety and  irreligion.  Strada  investigates  the  causes  of  the 
revolt  of  the  Netherlands,  and  considers  and  dismisses,  as  of 
little  importance,  such  solutions  of  this  event  as  might  appear 
to  us  very  adequate  to  account  for  it, — the  introduction,  for 
instance,  of  a  standing  army  amid  a  people  whose  laws  and 
constitution  were  of  a  free  and  popular  cast ;  the  forcible  in- 
crease of  a  number  of  ecclesiastical  dignitaries  ;  the  attempt  to 


308  LECTURE  XII. 

introduce  the  Inquisition  ;  the  enforcing  the  intolerable  edicts 
of  Charles  the  Fifth.  These  causes  he  considers  as  contribut- 
ing indeed  somewhat  to  the  tumults  in  religion,  but  the  first 
and  true  origin  of  the  whole  he  finds  only  in  heresy. 

It  was  this,  he  conceives,  that  rendered  turbulent  the  mass 
of  the  community  ;  and  when  to  this  was  added  the  discontent 
of  the  nobles,  the  rest  was  of  course. 

Bentivoglio,  in  like  manner,  considers  religion  and  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  profession  of  it  as  one  and  the  same  thing,  and 
seems  never  to  have  apprehended  that  civil  obedience  had  any 
bounds  but  the  good  pleasure  of  the  sovereign. 

It  is  very  singular  that  a  pope's  nuncio  like  Bentivoglio, 
coming  to  the  Netherlands  just  after  the  close  of  these  dread- 
ful contentions,  should  write  an  account  of  them,  which  even 
Grotius  should  pronounce  to  be  an  impartial  history.  It  is 
agreeable  to  observe  that  the  great  duty  of  an  historian  is  so 
obvious  and  indispensable,  that  it  can  in  this  manner  be  felt 
and  obeyed  even  by  a  man  like  Bentivoglio,  who  had  surren- 
dered all  the  freedom  of  his  mind  on  every  other  subject  con- 
nected with  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

Strada  had  an  unfortunate  wish  to  write  like  Tacitus  ;  but 
Bentivoglio  will  in  no  respect  fatigue  or  repel  the  reader. 
After  the  first  four  books  have  been  read  and  compared  with 
Watson,  the  remainder  may  be  consulted  or  perused,  as  the 
student  thinks  best. 

There  seem  to  me  two  principal  lessons  to  be  drawn  from 
this  part  of  the  history  of  the  Low  Countries. 

First,  the  unhappy  effects  of  intolerance.  In  this  respect 
the  facts  and  the  conclusions  to  be  derived  from  them  are  the 
same  as  in  other  countries,  and  such  as  we  have  already  no- 
ticed. 

Secondly,  the  impolicy  of  all  harsh  government.  The 
Netherlands  were  dependencies  of  the  Spanish  monarchy.  It 
has  never  yet  been  possible  to  teach  any  country,  nor  even 
any  cabinet,  the  wisdom  of  governing  its  colonies  or  depen- 
dencies with  mildness. 

The  first  portion  of  this  history,  while  Margaret  of  Parma 
was  in  authority,  is  therefore  particularly  to  be  studied  ;  the 
portion  I  have  already  mentioned.  She  endeavoured  to  gov- 
ern mildly. 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  309 

The  system  of  Philip  the  Second  was  no  doubt  the  most 
violent  specimen  of  harsh  government  that  has  yet  been  exhib- 
ited among  mankind.  But  the  system  of  all  other  mother 
countries  has  been  similar  ;  and  what  difference  there  may  be 
is  in  degree,  and  not  in  kind. 

A  distinction  is  here  to  be  made.  Philip  the  Second  has  al- 
ways been  considered,  and  justly,  as  the  most  perfect  example 
of  bigotry  that  history  supplies  ;  and  to  this  must  be  imputed 
much  of  the  abominable  tyranny  which  he  exercised  over  the 
Low  Countries. 

But  the  love  of  arbitrary  power  is  always  found  where  big- 
otry is  found.  The  human  mind,  amid  its  endless  inconsis- 
tencies, is  indeed  capable  of  being  animated  with  a  love  of 
religious  liberty,  and  yet  of  being  at  the  same  time  ignorant 
of  the  nature,  or  somewhat  indifferent  to  the  cause,  of  civil 
liberty.  Instances  of  this  kind,  though  very  rare,  have  some- 
times occurred,  but  the  converse  never  has  ;  no  man  was  ever 
a  religious  bigot,  and  at  the  same  time  a  friend  to  civil  lib- 
erty ;  and  it  was  perfectly  consistent  for  Philip  not  only  to 
introduce  the  inquisition  into  the  Low  Countries,  but  also 
Spanish  soldiers  into  the  fortified  towns  ;  to  deprive  the  Flem- 
ings of  the  free  exercise  of  their  religious  opinions,  and  at 
the  same  time  of  the  laws  and  privileges  of  their  states  and 
assemblies  ;  to  leave,  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  no  visible  head 
but  the  Pope,  and  in  civil  affairs  no  real  authority  but  his 
own.  These  were  parts  of  a  system  of  conduct  that  perfectly 
harmonized  with  each  other  :  each  took  its  turn  as  the  occasion 
required. 

The  favorite  instruments  of  his  tyranny  were  men  of  like  na- 
ture with  himself;  foes  equally  to  civil  and  religious  liberty, — 
Cardinal  Granvelle  and  the  Duke  of  Alva. 

Bigotry  and  the  love  of  rule  had  so  conspired  even  in 
Charles  the  Fifth,  his  father,  that  he  had  paved  the  way,  by  his 
edicts,  for  all  the  subsequent  proceedings  of  Philip  ;  and  was, 
perhaps,  only  saved  from  similar  enormities  by  a  partiality 
which  he  had  contracted  for  Flanders  in  his  early  years  ;  those 
years  when  his  mind  was  in  its  natural  state,  could  be  capable 
of  attaching  itself  to  the  objects  that  surrounded  it,  and  of 
tasting  a  happiness  which  it  is  probable  no  subsequent  splendor 
could  ever  afterwards  bestow. 


310  LECTURE  XII. 

The  object  contended  for  by  Philip  was,  that  the  religious 
persuasion  of  these  countries  should  be  the  same  as  his  own. 
"  You  may  lose  them  if  you  persist,"  said  one  of  his  officers. 
"  I  would  rather  be  without  kingdoms,"  he  replied,  "  than 
enjoy  them  with  heresy." 

Now,  on  all  occasions  when  harsh  government  is  to  be  the 
means,  it  will  always  be  found,  as  in  this  instance,  that,  in  the 
first  place,  the  end  to  be  accomplished  is  not  worth  the  risk  of 
the  experiment,  to  say  nothing  of  the  injustice  of  the  experi- 
ment itself. 

Next,  it  will  be  found  that  some  statesmen  like  Cardinal 
Granvelle  always  makes  his  appearance  ;  very  violent  and  very 
able  ;  qualities  not  incompatible  ;  skilled  in  business,  and  per- 
haps acquainted  with  the  inferior  country  that  is  to  be  ruled  ; 
distinct,  decisive,  and  consistent  in  his  opinions  ;  whose  coun- 
sels, therefore,  have  an  air  of  wisdom  which  does  not  belong 
to  them,  and  acquire  irresistible  authority  in  the  superior  or 
mother  country,  with  the  monarch  and  his  cabinet,  because 
they  are  not  well  informed  themselves,  and  are  already  suffi- 
ciently disposed  to  such  counsels  from  the  prejudices  of  their 
own  situation. 

Again  ;  —  The  Roman  Catholic  historians  are  satisfied  in 
imputing  all  the  turbulence,  as  they  would  call  it,  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange  and  the  Flemish  leaders  to  disappointed  ambition. 
But  it  is  always  forgotten  that  such  disappointment  is  reasona- 
ble. When  authority  and  influence  are  generally  conferred, 
not  on  the  natives  of  the  country  governed,  but  on  those  who 
in  comparison  are  considered  as  aliens,  it  is  impossible  that  men 
should  be  satisfied  with  the  government  which  robs  them  of 
their  natural  consequence  in  their  own  land.  This  is  a  very 
common  species  of  impolicy  and  injustice. 

The  Flemings,  it  will  be  found,  had  every  reason  to  be  dis- 
satisfied in  this  respect. 

Lastly,  the  student  will  observe,  on  the  other  side,  great  ir- 
regularities committed  by  the  people  in  their  mode  of  resist- 
ance to  Philip  ;  the  symbols  of  the  Roman  Catholic  worship 
insulted  with  great  violence  and  outrage  ;  and  an  intolerance 
displayed  by  them,  precisely  of  the  same  nature  with  the  intol- 
erance of  Philip  himself. 

Excesses  of  this  kind  always  occur,  and  are  instantly  seized 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  311 

upon  in  argument,  by  those  who  govern,  as  justifying  the 
harsh  measures  that  in  fact  led  the  way  to  them  ;  they  are 
brought  forward  as  demanding  fresh  applications  of  force  and 
severity. 

But  the  very  contrary  of  all  this  is  the  proper  conclusion  ; 
it  is  the  total  inability  of  the  people  to  govern  for  themselves  ; 
it  is  their  inevitable  fury,  ignorance,  and  brutality,  when  once 
roused,  that  renders  mild  government  so  indispensable  a  duty 
in  their  rulers.  Their  faults  are  a  part  of  the  very  case ; 
temper,  moderation,  reasonable  views,  it  is  ridiculous  to  ex- 
pect from  them;  but  in  cabinets  they  may  and  ought  to  be 
found  :  if  they  are  not  found  somewhere,  what  must  be  the 
consequence  ? 

I  would  recommend  you  particularly  to  observe  how  the 
whole  nature  of  a  subject  like  this  is  brought  before  your  view 
by  the  debate  that  you  will  find  represented  by  Bentivoglio  as 
taking  place  in  the  Spanish  cabinet  in  the  presence  of  Philip 
the  Second. 

The  Duke  of  Feria  was  the  advocate  for  mild  measures  ;  the 
Duke  of  Alva  for  force.  Their  speeches  are  given. 

Strada  also  gives  the  debate,  but  puts  much  of  the  argumen- 
tation of  Feria  into  the  mouth  of  the  Prince  of  Eboli,  who  is 
mentioned  by  Bentivoglio  as  seconding  rather  than  leading  the 
Duke  of  Feria.  The  Duke  of  Alva  appears  in  each  of  the 
historians  to  have  advised  instant  coercion.  He  was  the  Mo- 
loch, whose  "sentence  was  for  open  war." 

I  must  confess  that  I  think  this  debate,  which  you  will  see 
best  in  Bentivoglio,  very  remarkable. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  the  reasonings  of  the  Spanish  states- 
men are,  on  this  occasion,  exactly  the  same  with  those  of  our 
own  statesmen  at  the  breaking  out,  and  during  the  continuance, 
of  the  late  American  war. 

Nor  was  the  event  dissimilar.  The  good  sense  of  the  Duke 
of  Feria  was  exerted  with  as  little  effect  as  was  afterwards  the 
philosophic  eloquence  of  Mr.  Burke.  The  establishment  of 
the  republic  of  Holland  was  in  one  instance  the  consequence, 
and  the  independence  of  America  in  the  other. 

But  reason  and  history  are  equally  unavailing  to  teach  the 
wisdom  of  temperate  and  healing  counsels  to  a  brave  and 
prosperous  people,  as  were  the  Spaniards  in  the  first  instance, 


312  LECTURE  XII. 

and  the  English  in  the  second.  Such  a  people  and  their  rulers 
inflame  each  other,  and  every  thing  is  to  be  submitted  to  that 
irritable  jealousy  and  high  sense  of  national  importance  which 
their  courage  and  their  power  so  inevitably  produce. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Margaret  of  Parma  had,  in  the  mean 
time,  very  tolerably  composed  the  troubles  of  the  Netherlands. 
The  imperious  nature  of  Philip  and  his  counsellors  was  to  be 
gratified,  the  Flemings  were  to  be  taught  what  it  was  to  resist 
authority,  and  Alva  was  to  be  despatched  to  enforce  that  obedi- 
ence by  arms,  which  it  suited  not,  it  seems,  the  dignity  of  the 
monarch  to  deserve  by  humanity  and  justice. 

The  nature  of  the  Flemish  grievances  may  be  very  clearly 
understood  from  Watson,  and  even  from  Bentivoglio. 

The  Reformation  had  made  some  progress  in  the  Nether- 
lands. The  prosperity  of  the  people  everywhere  depended, 
not  on  any  assistance  from  the  Spanish  monarchy,  but  on  their 
own  industry  and  commerce  ;  that  is,  on  their  equal  laws  and 
constitutional  privileges.  The  edicts  of  Charles  the  Fifth  had 
declared,  that  all  persons  who  held  heretical  opinions  should  be 
deprived  of  their  offices  and  degraded  from  their  rank  ;  that 
they  who  taught  these  doctrines,  or  were  present  at  the  reli- 
gious meetings  of  heretics,  should  be  put  to  death  ;  that  even 
those  who  did  not  inform  of  heretics  should  be  subjected  to 
the  same  penalties. 

Philip  had  resolved,  first,  to  enforce  these  horrible  edicts. 
Secondly,  to  establish  a  tribunal  that  could  not  be  distinguished, 
except  in  name,  from  that  of  the  Inquisition.  Thirdly,  to  in- 
crease the  number  of  bishops  from  five  to  seventeen.  These 
were  to  be  the  ecclesiastical  instruments  of  his  power.  The 
civil  instruments  of  his  authority  were  to  be  found  in  the  nu- 
merous bands  of  Spanish  soldiers  which,  fourthly,  he  resolved 
to  station  in  the  provinces  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  their 
fundamental  laws. 

It  can  be  no  matter  of  surprise  that  a  system  like  this 
should  be  considered  by  a  people  so  situated,  as  a  system  of 
destruction. 

The  resistance  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  of  some  of  the 
Flemish  nobles,  will  be  found,  even  according  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  Bentivoglio,  to  have  been  as  temperate  and 
regular  as  the  calmest  speculator  could  require.  And  the 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  313 

whole  of  the  proceedings  between  them  and  the  regent  Mar- 
garet, and  between  both  and  the  Spanish  court,  are  very 
instructive. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  next  part  of  the  subject,  the 
resistance  that  in  fact  was  made,  it  must  surely  be  a  matter  of 
great  surprise  to  us  to  find,  that  no  general  effort  of  this  kind 
seems  to  have  been  made  against  the  Duke  of  Alva  when  he 
at  length  appeared. 

He  came  into  the  Low  Countries,  and,  with  an  army  of  about 
fourteen  thousand  men,  he  disposed  of  the  lives  and  privileges 
of  the  Flemings  of  all  ranks  at  his  pleasure,  imprisoned  two 
of  the  most  popular  and  meritorious  noblemen,  erected  a 
Council  of  Tumults,  or,  as  it  was  more  properly  called,  a 
council  of  blood,  and  destroyed  in  the  course  of  a  few 
months,  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  more  than  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  different  individuals  ;  while  more  than 
twenty  thousand  persons  fled  into  France,  Germany,  and 
England,  without  the  slightest  attempt  having  first  been  made, 
either  by  themselves  or  others,  for  their  common  safety  and 
protection. 

These  cruelties,  and  the  cruelties  that  were  inflicted  by 
other  persecutors  who  preceded  Alva,  may  be  seen  in  Brandt  ; 
and  Bentivoglio  himself  observes,  that  even  those  who  were 
nowise  concerned  were  affrighted  to  see  the  faults  of  others 
so  severely  punished  ;  and  they  groaned,  he  says,  to  perceive 
that  Flanders,  which  was  wont  to  enjoy  one  of  the  easiest 
governments  in  Europe,  should  now  have  no  other  object  to 
behold  but  the  terror  of  arms,  flight  of  exiles,  imprisonment 
and  blood,  death  and  confiscations. 

The  only  resource  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  patriots, 
seems  lo  have  been  to  raise  forces  in  Germany  from  their  own 
funds,  and  to  call  to  their  assistance  the  Protestant  princes,  the 
Count  Palatine,  the  Duke  of  Wirtemberg,  the  Landgrave  of 
Hesse,  and  others. 

u  The  danger  is  common,"  says  the  Prince  of  Orange,  "  so 
should  the  cause  be.  The  Spanish  forces,  once  in  Flanders, 
will  be  always  ready  to  enter  Germany  ;  and  you  will  have 
new  taxes,  new  customs,  severe  laws,  more  severely  executed  ; 
heavy  yokes  upon  your  persons,  and  more  heavy  upon  your 
consciences.  I  am  held,"  said  he,  u  to  be  the  contriver  of 

VOL.  i.  40 


314  LECTURE  XII. 

conspiracies  ;  but  what  greater  glory  can  there  be  than  to  main- 
tain the  liberty  of  a  man's  country,  and  to  die  rather  than  be 
enslaved  ? " 

William  and  his  brother  led  separate  armies  against  the  Duke 
of  Alva,  but  were  obliged,  the  one  to  fly,  and  the  other  to 
disband  his  troops.  The  want  of  the  means  to  pay  them 
proved  equally  fatal  in  different  ways  to  the  enterprises  of  each 
commander  ;  and  neither  proper  funds,  nor  adequate  assistance, 
were  supplied  by  the  Flemings  themselves. 

This  is  one  instance  among  many,  which  it  is  melancholy  to 
observe,  of  the  difficulty  with  which  the  regular  troops  of  an 
unprincipled  tyrant  can  be  resisted,  or  at  least  ever  are  resisted, 
by  an  insulted  and  oppressed  people. 

The  principal  cities  became  sensibly  thinner  in  population  ; 
whole  villages  and  small  towns  were  rendered  almost  desolate. 
Still  no  resistance,  that  is,  no  resistance  from  the  Flemings 
themselves. 

But  it  fortunately  happened  that  Alva  was  not  only  made 
more  arbitrary  and  insolent  by  success,  but  he  began  himself  to 
feel  the  same  want  of  money  for  the  payment  of  his  troops, 
which  had  been  so  fatal  to  the  Protestant  leaders. 

Philip  was  supposed  at  the  time  to  possess  all  the  wealth  of 
the  world,  and  he  certainly  did  possess  a  large  portion  of  the 
gold  and  silver  of  it ;  but  it  was  now  to  be  shown  that  am- 
bition and  harsh  government  could  exhaust  even  Mexico  and 
Peru. 

Alva  found  himself  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  taxation,  and 
to  require  from  the  industry  and  wealth  of  the  Flemings  them- 
selves, that  constant  supply  which  all  the  mines  and  slaves  of 
his  master  were  insufficient  to  afford  him. 

And  now  for  once  it  happened,  that  a  total  ignorance  of  the 
principles  of  political  economy  in  the  rulers  was  eventually 
favorable  to  the  happiness  of  the  people. 

The  duke  insisted, —  1st,  upon  one  per  cent,  on  all  goods 
movable  or  immovable  ;  2dly,  on  an  annual  tax  of  twenty 
per  cent,  on  all  immovable  goods  or  heritage;  and,  lastly,  of 
ten  per  cent,  on  all  movable  goods  to  be  paid  on  every  sale 
of  them. 

Taxes  better  fitted,  the  former  for  the  annoyance  of  a 
commercial  people,  and  the  latter  for  their  destruction,  could 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  315 

not  well  have  been  contrived.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Duke 
of  Alva  was  told,  that  if  this  ten  per  cent,  was  paid  on  every 
sale  of  an  article, — first,  on  the  wool,  for  instance,  then  on 
the  yarn,  then  on  the  cloth  before  it  was  dyed  ;  then,  when 
sold,  first  to  the  merchant,  secondly  to  the  retailer,  and  lastly 
to  the  consumer,  no  foreign  customer  would  be  willing  to  buy 
it,  and  no  home  customer  would  be  able  ;  and  that,  on  the 
whole,  such  a  tax  could  only  produce  the  ruin  of  the  manu- 
facture itself  and  all  concerned,  or,  in  other  words,  of  all  the 
sources  of  revenue  together. 

Observations  of  this  kind  were  sufficiently  answered  by 
Alva,  as  he  thought,  when  he  replied,  with  that  stupidity  as 
well  as  insolence  which  so  generally  belongs  to  arbitrary  power, 
that  the  tax  was  levied  in  his  town  of  Alva,  and  that  he  wanted 
the  money. 

It  is  not  very  agreeable  to  observe,  that  everywhere,  through 
all  history,  the  most  sensible  nerve  that  can  be  touched  is  this 
of  taxation.  Privileges  may  be  taken  away,  laws  violated, 
public  assemblies  discontinued,  no  distant  consequence  is  re- 
garded, no  common  principle  seems  as  yet  sufficiently  out- 
raged :  the  community  are  silent,  or  only  murmur  for  a  short 
season  and  submit  ;  but  if  a  tax  is  to  be  levied,  every  man 
feels  his  interest  at  issue,  every  man  starts  up  in  arms,  every 
man  cries  with  Shylock,  — 

"  Nay,  take  my  life,  and  all ; 

You  take  my  life, 

When  you  do  take  the  means  whereby  I  live." 

Observe  the  facts  in  these  Low  Countries. 

The  Flemings  had  seen  their  fellow-citizens  executed  by 
the  Duke  of  Alva,  had  seen  all  the  principles  of  their  civil 
and  religious  liberty  destroyed  ;  had  suffered  the  Prince  of 
Orange  and  their  patriot  leaders  to  fight  their  battles  by  means 
of  German  Protestants,  whom  he  was  to  pay  in  any  manner 
he  could  devise,  a  task  to  which  it  must  have  been  known  that 
his  funds  were  totally  unequal  :  all  this  they  had  seen,  and  all 
this  pusillanimous  guilt  they  had  incurred  ;  but  the  moment 
that  the  loss  of  their  civil  liberty  was  to  produce  one  of  its 
many  injurious  effects,  the  moment  that  the  duke's  tax  gather- 


316  LECTURE  XII. 

ers  were  to  interfere  with  their  manufactures  and  with  the 
sources  of  their  opulence,  then,  and  not  till  then,  combinations 
could  be  formed,  a  universal  sensation  take  place,  and  resist- 
ance to  the  Spanish  tyranny  everywhere  assume  a  visible  form, 
and  become  a  regular  system. 

But  our  mortification  is  not  yet  to  end.  We  might  wish 
to  see  mankind  always  ready  to  kindle  with  a  generous  and 
rational  sympathy.  We  might  wish  to  see  them  act  with 
some  reasonable  consistency  and  courage  when  oppressed  ; 
but  what  was  the  fact  ?  The  Walloon  or  southern  provinces, 
being  not  so  entirely  commercial,  as  those  that  were  more 
maritime,  will  be  found  on  that  account  (for  no  other  reason 
can  be  given)  to  have  resisted  the  taxes  of  Alva  less  firmly. 

It  is  painful  to  follow  the  subject  through  all  the  more 
minute  but  "important  particulars  that  belong  to  it,  and  to  ob- 
serve the  manner  in  which  so  many  of  the  provinces  could  be 
practised  upon  and  gained  over  ;  could  be  soothed,  deluded, 
or  terrified  ;  could  basely  consent  to  submit  to  a  certain  part 
of  the  proposed  requisitions,  that  is,  to  fit  on  such  of  the 
chains  as  they  thought  might  possibly  be  borne,  while  the  rest 
were  to  be  left  still  hanging  in  the  hands  of  their  oppressors, 
ready  to  be  applied  on  the  first  occasion,  an  occasion  which 
they  might  be  certain  would  so  soon  and  so  inevitably  follow. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  resistance  of  Brabant,  and  the  still 
more  intelligent  and  invariable  firmness  of  the  single  province 
of  Utrecht,  all  might  have  been  lost  ;  and  the  bigoted,  unfeel- 
ing Philip,  though  his  subjects  might  no  longer  have  been 
worth  his  ruling,  would  at  least  have  had  the  gratification  of 
seeing  them  bound  and  prostrate  at  his  feet. 

The  example,  however,  of  Utrecht  was  not  without  its 
effect,  and  its  resistance  was  fatal  to  the  Spanish  system  of 
taxation  ;  a  distinction,  it  is  true,  may  always  be  perceived 
between  the  seven  northern,  more  commercial  provinces,  and 
the  rest.  The  more  southern  and  less  commercial  often  ob- 
served a  cold  neutrality,  and  were  even  guilty  of  a  species  of 
hostility  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  patriotic  cause  that 
was  often  but  too  convenient  and  favorable  to  the  Spanish 
arms. 

Cruelty  and  oppression  were,  however,  destined  at  last  to 
receive  some  lessons.  Holland,  Zealand,  and  five  other  of 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  317 

the  more  bold  and  virtuous  provinces  of  the  Low  Countries, 
which  with  Brabant  must  be  always  distinguished  from  the  rest, 
openly  and  steadily  resisted.  It  is  consoling  to  observe,  that 
even  the  exiles,  men  whom  Alva  had  reduced,  as  he  supposed, 
to  the  condition  of  mere  outcasts  and  pirates,  too  contemptible 
to  interest  his  thoughts  for  a  moment,  were  in  fact  the  very 
men  who  gave  strength  and  animation  to  the  revolt  ;  and  by 
their  armed  vessels,  their  enterprises,  their  extraordinary  exer- 
tions by  sea  as  well  as  by  land,  so  shook,  and  injured,  and 
endangered  the  Spanish  greatness,  that  the  entire  independence 
of  a  part  at  least  of  the  Low  Countries  was  at  last  formally  as- 
serted. 

The  military  conduct  of  Alva  is  remarkable.  In  the  field  he 
was  as  calm  and  considerate,  as  he  was  rash  and  intemperate  in 
the  cabinet  ;  that  is,  he  understood  the  science  of  war,  but  not 
of  politics.  Yet  still  he  could  not,  even  in  arms,  succeed. 
The  opportunities  for  resistance  afforded  by  the  singular  sit- 
uation of  the  maritime  provinces,  the  consummate  prudence, 
the  zeal,  and  the  tolerant  spirit  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  were 
obstacles  which  he  could  not  entirely  overcome.  The  great 
towns  in  Holland,  Haerlern  and  others,  were  besieged,  taken, 
and  outraged,  by  the  most  extraordinary  excesses  of  cruelty 
and  rapine  ;  but  there  were  other  towns  that  could  not  be 
taken.  Holland,  Zealand,  and  five  other  provinces  acknowl- 
edged the  authority  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  not  of  Philip  ; 
and  Alva  at  last  retired,  though  the  rebellion  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries was  not  put  down,  and  neither  his  own  vengeance,  nor  that 
of  his  master,  as  yet  satiated.  He  consoled  himself,  we  are 
told,  with  the  reflection,  that  eighteen  thousand  heretics  had 
suffered  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner ;  and  a  much  greater 
number  fallen  by  famine  or  the  sword. 

It  appears  from  this  history,  that  concessions  were  made  by 
the  Spanish  court  ;  but,  as  is  usual  in  such  contests,  made  too 
late  :  orders  had  been  sent  by  Philip  to  remit  the  taxes  of 
the  ten  and  twenty  per  cent.,  but  not  till  the  maritime  prov- 
inces had  already  revolted.  After  Alva,  with  his  soldiers  and 
executioners,  had  been  let  loose  upon  the  provinces  for  nearly 
six  years  together,  Philip  began  at  last  to  doubt  a  little 
the  efficacy  of  force,  and  to  be  disposed  to  send  a  new  gov- 


318  LECTURE  XII. 

ernor,  in  the  person  of  Requesens,  who  might  act  on  a  more 
conciliating  system. 

Requesens  was  a  man  of  ability  and  moderation,  and  this  last 
part  of  his  character  gave  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  patri- 
ots the  greatest  apprehension,  lest  the  Flemings  should  too 
readily  forget  the  perfidy  and  cruelty  of  their  oppressors.  But 
Requesens  not  only  came  too  late,  but  found  it  impossible  to 
serve  such  a  master  as  Philip. 

I  can,  however,  no  longer  continue  this  sort  of  narrative. 
After  Requesens  followed  a  kind  of  interregnum,  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  Flemish  counsel  of  state.  Then  the  adminis- 
tration of  Don  John  of  Austria.  Lastly,  that  of  the  justly 
renowned  Prince  of  Parma. 

Each  of  these  administrations  became  eras  in  this  great  con- 
test. Each  has  its  particular  events,  and  its  own  more  striking, 
though  not  very  dissimilar  lessons. 

I  had  drawn  up  observations  on  each  of  them.  But  I  must 
omit  all  further  allusion,  not  only  to  the  facts  of  this  contest, 
but  to  the  contest  itself. 

I  must  break  away  from  the  subject,  for  I  must  hasten  to 
conclude  my  lecture. 

I  am  willing  to  hope,  that  you  will  not  only  read  the  whole 
account  in  Watson,  but  be  prepared  to  make  such  observations 
on  the  events,  as  they  ought,  I  think,  to  excite  in  your  minds. 
If  I  have  succeeded  to  this  extent,  I  am  satisfied,  and  consider 
my  office  as  at  an  end. 

To  advert,  therefore,  to  the  final  result  of  this  great  strug- 
gle, and  to  finish  my  lecture. 

The  Prince  of  Orange,  notwithstanding  the  defection  of 
some,  and  the  mutual  jealousies  of  too  many  of  the  provinces, 
had  contrived  to  form  the  union  of  Utrecht,  —  a  combination 
of  seven  of  them  ;  and  this  union  may  be  considered  as  the 
first  foundation  of  the  republic  of  Holland. 

It  is  difficult  for  unprincipled  ambition  to  be  prudent. 
Philip  had  not  only  schemes  of  tyranny  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries, but  of  invasion  in  England,  and  of  aggrandizement  in 
France.  The  multiplicity  of  his  designs  exhausted  even  his 
American  treasures  :  the  impossibility  of  his  wishes  squan- 
dered away  even  the  resources  of  the  genius  of  the  Duke  of 
Parma.  The  United  Provinces  were  not  subdued,  England 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  319 

not  overcome,  France  not  united  to  his  crown,  and  Europe  not 
subjected  to  the  domination  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

We  have  at  last  the  satisfaction  to  see  the  seven  maritime 
provinces  at  least,  treating  with  their  oppressors  as  sovereign 
states  ;  and  not  only  their  independence  admitted,  but  their 
trade  with  the  Indies  allowed,  and  their  cause  completely 
triumphant. 

These  events,  and  particularly  the  negotiations  for  peace, 
may  be  seen  in  Bentivoglio  and  Wraxall,  and  may  be  consid- 
ered with  still  greater  advantage  in  Watson.  Transactions  of 
this  nature  are  very  deserving  of  attention  ;  and  we  cannot  but 
be  struck,  not  only  with  the  active  policy  of  Henry  the  Fourth 
of  France,  but  with  the  virtuous  exertions  of  the  wise  Barne- 
velt,  who,  more  successful  than  other  patriots  who  resembled 
him  have  sometimes  been,  had  the  pure  satisfaction  of  reason- 
ing into  peace  his  inflamed  and  improvident  countrymen. 

On  the  whole  of  this  memorable  contest,  —  a  contest  of  half 
a  century,  —  the  great  hero  was  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the  great 
delinquent  was  Philip  the  Second.  The  one  may  be  proposed 
as  a  model,  in  public  and  in  private,  of  every  thing  that  is  good 
and  great ;  and  the  other  (with  the  exception  of  attention  to 
business,)  of  every  thing  that  is  to  be  avoided  and  abhorred. 

To  Europe  and  mankind,  in  the  mean  time,  the  success  of 
the  maritime  provinces  was  of  the  greatest  importance.  The 
power  of  the  house  of  Austria  was  for  ever  prevented  from 
gaining  too  dangerous  an  ascendancy. 

Resistance  to  those  who  were  controlling  religious  opinions 
by  fire  and  sword,  and  trampling  upon  constitutional  privileges, 
had  been  successfully  made. 

An  asylum  was  opened  for  all  those,  of  whatever  country, 
who  fled  from  persecution  ;  from  persecution  of  whatever  kind. 
The  benefit  thus  accruing  to  mankind  cannot  now  be  properly 
estimated,  for  we  cannot  now  feel  what  it  is  to  have  no  refuge 
and  no  means  of  resistance,  while  men  are  ready  to  punish  us 
for  our  opinions,  and  are  making  themselves  inquisitors  of  our 
conduct.  It  is  known  to  have  been  one  of  the  severest  miseries 
of  the  later  Romans,  that  they  could  not  escape  from  their  gov- 
ernment ;  that  the  world  belonged  to  their  emperors. 

It  was  in  the  Low  Countries  that  the  defenders  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  found  shelter.  It  was  there  that  they  could 


320  LECTURE  XII. 

state  their  complaints,  publish  what  they  conceived  to  be  the 
truth,  and  maintain  and  exercise  the  privileges  of  free  inquiry. 
These  were  the  countries  to  which  Locke  retired,  and  where 
William  the  Third  was  formed. 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  wonders  that  can  be  effected  by 
commerce  and  the  peaceful  arts  were  displayed,  and,  on  the 
whole,  a  practical  example  was  held  up  to  the  princes  and 
statesmen  of  every  age  and  nation,  well  fitted  to  teach  them 
many  of  those  great  truths  which  every  .  friend  of  humanity 
would  wish  always  present  to  their  minds  :  that  ambition  should 
be  virtuous  and  peaceful,  that  religious  feelings  should  be  toler- 
ant, that  government  should  be  mild. 


NOTES. 


The  Edict  of  Nantz. 

THE  remonstrances  of  the  Protestants  were  vain  on  the  subject  of  tithes. 
But  the  king,  by  a  brief,  promised  to  furnish  them  annually  with  a  certain 
sum,  to  be  employed  (says  the  brief)  in  certain  secret  affairs  relating  to 
them,  which  his  majesty  does  not  think  fit  to  specify  or  declare.  They  were 
also  allowed  (but  by  the  secret  articles)  to  receive  gifts  and  legacies.  They 
were  indulged,  too  (twenty-second  article),  in  being  eligible  to  offices  in  the 
universities,  and  in  sending  their  children  freely  to  the  public  schools. 

But  so  much  more  is  necessary  to  the  weaker  sect  than  edicts  or  laws  in 
their  favor,  that  this  very  concession  was  afterwards  made  a  pretext  for  pre- 
venting Protestants  from  teaching  any  thing  in  their  own  small  schools  but 
reading  and  arithmetic,  "  because,"  said  the  Roman  Catholics,  c<  the  children 
may  be  sent  to  our  public  colleges." 

Three  parliaments  or  courts  of  law  were  fixed  upon,  where  the  number  of 
Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic  judges  were  to  be  equal ;  a  necessary 
arrangement,  it  seems,  to  procure  them  the  proper  protection  of  the  law. 

Protestant  books  were  only  to  be  sold  where  the  religion  was  publicly 
exercised  ;  in  other  places  after  an  "  imprimatur  "  ;  not  in  the  metropolis, 
for  instance. 

II. 

Low  Countries. 

FROM  the  termination  of  the  great  struggle  between  the  Low  Countries 
and  Philip  the  Second,  inferences  have  been  drawn  more  favorable  to  the 
practicability  of  resistance  to  oppression  than  the  transactions,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  will  warrant. 

Of  the  seventeen  provinces,  though  the  condition  of  all  must  have  been 
much  ameliorated,  seven  only  were  emancipated  from  the  Spanish  yoke. 

They  who  have  to  resist  the  regular  armies  of  their  tyrants  can  seldom  be 
so  situated  as  were  the  inhabitants  of  these  maritime  provinces ;  they  can 
seldom  be  possessed  of  such  fortified  towns,  and  of  a  country  so  singularly 
impracticable  to  invaders.  It  is  seldom  that  they  can  have  a  marine  so 
powerful,  and  the  commerce  and  the  possessions,  the  very  treasures  of  their 
oppressors,  so  exposed  to  insult  and  injury,  to  capture  and  ruin.  It  is  sel- 
VOL.  I.  41 


322  NOTES. 

dom  that  an  unhappy  people  can  be  found  so  justly  infuriated,  and  rendered 
so  totally  desperate  by  their  particular  sufferings  and  their  particular  cause  ; 
it  is  seldom  that  they  can  have  been  so  fortunately  educated,  as  were  the 
Hollanders,  to  a  sense  of  right,  by  the  prior  influence  of  a  free  government. 

Yet  the  policy  of  the  case,  as  it  respects  the  tyrant  himself  (or  the  superior 
country,  is  not  altered. 

The  oppressed  country  will  always  find  support  from  the  neighbouring 
powers  ;  great  mistakes,  like  those  of  Philip,  will  be  probably  made  ;  illus- 
trious defenders  of  their  country  will  probably  arise,  produced  by  the  oc- 
casion. 

Injury  must  at  all  events  be  received  by  the  superior  power.  The  most 
successful  issue  will  but  turn  subjects  into  slaves ;  brothers  into  enemies ; 
and  impair  those  principles  of  dignified  obedience  and  reciprocal  right  be- 
tween the  governors  and  the  governed,  which  externally  and  internally,  in 
the  superior  as  well  as  the  dependent  state,  are  the  only  steady  and  effective 
causes  of  all  real  greatness  and  prosperity. 

The  student  is  again  recommended  to  turn  to  the  debate  in  the  Spanish 
council,  given  by  Bentivoglio,  on  account  of  the  similarity  of  the  reasonings 
employed  by  our  own  statesmen  in  the  contest  with  our  American  colonies. 


LECTURE  XIII. 

THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 

WE  have  now  made  some  progress  in  the  history  of  this  cen- 
tury of  religious  wars.  We  have  considered  the  civil  and 
religious  wars  of  France  ;  next,  those  of  the  Low  Countries. 
We  must  now  turn  to  Germany. 

I  have  called  this  lecture,  a  lecture  on  the  thirty  years'  war ; 
but  I  should  rather  have  called  it  a  lecture  on  the  religious 
concerns  of  Germany. 

The  thirty  years'  war  is,  indeed,  the  most  interesting  portion 
of  the  whole,  and  that  to  which  the  attention  of  all  readers  of 
history  has  been  more  naturally  directed  ;  but  there  is  much 
to  be  read  and  considered  before  you  reach  the  thirty  years' 
war,  and  much  after  ;  or  you  will  not  be  able  to  embrace  in 
your  minds  the  whole  subject, — the  subject  of  the  religious 
concerns  of  Germany  during  the  sixteenth  century.  In  truth, 
I  am  to  allude  to  such  a  mass  of  reading  in  this  lecture,  and 
allude  to  it  so  indistinctly,  that  I  know  not  well  how  I  can 
enable  you  to  listen  to  what  I  am  to  address  you. 

It  may  assist  you,  perhaps,  if  you  will  first  attend  to  the 
order  in  which  I  am  going  to  proceed.  It  is  the  following  :  — 
The  Reformation  introduced  great  divisions  of  opinion  into 
Germany. 

I  must  first  allude  to  the  contest  that  existed  between  the 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Re- 
formation to  the  peace  of  Passau.  At  this  peace  of  Passau, 
the  interests  of  the  contending  parties  were  brought  to  an 
adjustment.  I  must  therefore  next  allude  to  the  provisions  of 
that  peace  of  Passau. 

But  after  some  time  this  adjustment  was  no  longer  ac- 
quiesced in,  and  the  thirty  years'  war  followed.  I  must 
therefore  allude  to  the  causes  which  brought  on  the  thirty 
years'  war. 


324  LECTURE  XIII. 

This  thirty  years'  war  is  a  memorable  era  in  history,  and  I 
must  therefore  allude  to  the  conduct  of  it,  and  to  the  great 
hero  of  the  Protestant  cause  on  this  occasion,  Gustavus 
Adolphus. 

The  peace  of  Westphalia  was  the  termination  of  this  great 
contest,  and  of  the  whole  subject  ;  and  I  must  therefore  allude 
finally  to  the  peace  of  Westphalia. 

The  whole  interval  from  the  days  of  Luther  to  this  peace 
of  Westphalia,  an  interval  of  more  than  a  century,  must  be 
considered  as  one  continued  struggle,  open  or  concealed,  be- 
tween the  Reformers  and  the  Roman  Catholics. 

The  first  period  of  this  great  contest  extends  to  the  peace 
of  Passau,  the  next  to  the  thirty  years'  war,  the  thirty  years' 
war  is  the  third.  The  peace  of  Westphalia  is  the  final  settle- 
ment of  the  whole. 

First,  then,  of  the  period  that  closed  with  the  peace  of 
Passau. 

I  need  neither,  as  I  conceive,  relate  the  facts,  nor  comment 
upon  them,  for  you  may  study  this  part  of  the  history  your- 
selves in  Robertson  and  Coxe,  and  it  would  be  a  waste  of  your 
time  to  offer  you  here,  in  a  mutilated  state,  what  you  will  find 
regularly  displayed  in  those  authors. 

I  may,  however,  select  what  I  consider  as  the  leading  events, 
and  recommend  you  to  fix  your  attention  upon  them.  They 
are  the  following  :  — 

First,  The  denial  of  the  authority  of  the  pope  by  Luther. 

Secondly,  The  total  intolerance  of  Charles  the  Fifth, 
avowed  in  the  edict  of  Worms. 

Thirdly,  The  resistance  of  the  Protestants,  and  the  exhibi- 
tion of  their  own  faith  in  the  confession  of  Augsburg. 

Fourthly,  Their  appeal  to  arms  from  the  injustice  of  Charles, 
—  the  league  of  Smalcalde. 

Lastly,  After  the  various  events  of  unrighteous  warfare,  the 
religious  peace  concluded  at  Passau,  in  1555,  about  the  close 
of  his  reign. 

These  are  the  principal  events.  You  must  consider  them, 
particularly  the  peace  of  Passau. 

On  this  last,  as  it  is  so  important,  I  will  stop  to  make  a  few 
observations. 

tt  was  the  first  great  adjustment  of  the  contending  religious 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  325 

interests  of  Germany.  It  was  extorted  from  Charles  the  Fifth, 
and,  on  the  whole,  it  was  favorable  to  the  great  cause  of  re- 
ligious freedom  and  the  welfare  of  mankind. 

Those  of  the  inferior  sect  were  no  longer  to  be  insulted,  dis- 
persed, or  exterminated  :  they  were  to  exist  in  society  as  their 
Roman  Catholic  brethren,  erect  and  independent  :  they  were 
to  worship  their  God  in  the  manner  they  thought  most  agreea- 
ble to  his  word.  Human  authority  in  matters  of  religious  faith 
was  avowedly  cast  off  by  a  large  and  respectable  part  of  the 
continent  ;  and  neither  the  magistrate  nor  the  soldier  was  any 
longer  to  unsheath  the  sword,  to  imprison,  to  massacre,  or  to 
drag  to  the  stake. 

In  practice,  therefore,  some  progress  had  been  made  ; 
some  progress  in  practice,  but  little  in  the  understandings  or 
feelings  of  mankind.  The  parties  abstained  from  mutual  vio- 
lence because  they  were  well  balanced,  and  feared  each  other  ; 
not  because  they  discerned  and  acknowledged  their  mutual 
rights  and  duties.  Not  only  were  the  Roman  Catholics 
separated  from  the  Protestants,  but  the  Lutherans  had  sep- 
arated themselves  from  the  Zuinglians,  afterwards  called  the 
Calvinists  ;  and  had  endeavoured  to  stigmatize  them  with  the 
name  of  Sacramentarians.  That  is,  the  Roman.  Catholics, 
the  Lutherans,  and  Calvinists,  were  all  equally  ready  to  be- 
lieve, that  every  religious  opinion  but  their  own  was  sinful, 
and  therefore  that  their  own,  upon  every  principle  of  piety  and 
reason,  was  at  all  events  to  be  propagated,  and  every  other 
repressed. 

Again.  We  have  already  observed  that  one  of  the  great  dif- 
ficulties on  this  subject  always  must  be  the  disposal  of  property 
to  the  ecclesiastic  :  to  which  sect  it  is  to  be  given  by  the  state  ; 
to  one,  or  to  all,  and  upon  what  conditions. 

This  difficulty  necessarily  appeared  at  the  pacification  which 
was  attempted  at  Passau. 

It  was  insisted  by  the  Protestants,  that  all  those  who  sep- 
arated from  the  church  of  Rome  should,  nevertheless,  retain 
their  ecclesiastical  emoluments  ;  emoluments,  it  must  be  ob- 
served, which  had  been  received  originally  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  establishment. 

By  the  Roman  Catholics  it  was  contended,  on  the  contrary, 
that  every  such  separatist  should  immediately  lose  his  benefice. 


326  LECTURE  XIII. 

This  point  could  not,  at  the  peace  of  Passau,  be  carried  by 
the  Protestants.  They  seem  to  have  sullenly  submitted,  and 
to  have  virtually  acquiesced  in  what  was  called  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal reservation.  This  reservation  secured  the  benefice,  and 
left  it  to  remain  with  the  Catholic  establishment  when  the  holder 
turned  Protestant. 

The  Protestants  were  consoled,  on  the  other  hand,  by  a 
declaration,  securing  liberty  of  conscience  to  those  who  adopt- 
ed the  confession  of  Augsburg,  —  a  declaration  which  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  as  little  relished,  as  the  Protestants  did  the 
reservation  just  mentioned. 

The  parties  were,  therefore,  not  as  yet  sufficiently  religious 
and  wise  to  settle  the  real  subjects  of  contention.  Then  fol- 
lowed, after  this  peace  of  Passau,  a  sort  of  interval  and  pause. 
After  this  interval,  all  Germany  was  laid  waste  and  convulsed 
by  the  thirty  years'  war. 

We  naturally  turn  to  ask  what  were  the  causes  of  so  dreadful 
an  event,  —  thirty  years'  war  ;  the  very  term  is  a  disgrace  to 
humanity.  To  this  the  answer  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  be, 
first,  the  intolerant  conduct  of  the  Protestant  princes  to  each 
other  ;  second,  the  bigotry,  ambition,  and  arbitrary  politics  of 
the  princes  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

I  will  say  a  word  on  each.  First,  with  regard  to  the  conduct 
of  the  Protestant  princes,  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic.  It  will 
appear  to  those  who  examine  the  history,  that  the  Protestant 
cause  was  well  established  at  the  peace  of  Passau,  and  at  the 
death  of  Charles  the  Fifth  ;  but  that  it  was  afterwards  nearly 
lost  by  the  advantages  which  the  Roman  Catholic  arms  and  pol- 
itics derived  from  the  dissensions  which  existed  between  the 
Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  princes. 

Though  these  princes  had  the  most  palpable  bond  of  union 
(their  wish  to  exercise  the  right  of  private  judgment),  —  though 
they  were  both  equally  opposed  to  the  Catholic  powers  who 
would  have  denied  them  this  inestimable  privilege,  yet  was  it 
impossible  for  them  to  differ  in  some  mysterious  points  of  doc- 
trine without  a  total  disregard  to  mutual  charity  ;  and  each 
sect,  rather  than  suffer  the  other  to  think  differently  from 
themselves,  was  contented  to  run  the  chance  of  being  over- 
powered by  the  Catholics,  that  is,  of  not  being  suffered  to 
think  at  all. 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  327 

The  Lutherans  might  have  been  possibly  expected  to  be 
the  most  rational,  that  is,  the  most  tolerant  of  the  two,  but 
they  were  not  so  ;  they  were  in  reality  more  in  fault  than  the 
Calvinists  ;  being  not  only  the  first  aggressors  in  this  dispute, 
with  their  fellow-protestants,  but  the  more  ready  to  temporize, 
to  betray  and  desert  the  common  cause. 

You  will  perceive  that  I  am  here  obliged  to  leave  great 
blanks  behind  me,  as  I  go  along,  and  you  will  perceive  the 
same  through  every  part  of  this  lecture.  These  blanks  must 
be  hereafter  filled  up  by  your  own  diligence.  I  cannot  ex- 
pect to  make  the  steps  I  take  through  my  subject  very  intelli- 
gible at  present. 

But  you  will  be  able  to  judge  of  my  arrangement,  my  state- 
ments, and  my  conclusions  hereafter,  when  you  come  to  read 
the  history. 

I  must,  then,  for  the  present,  content  myself  with  repeating 
to  you  that  the  Protestant  princes  were  themselves  very  faulty, 
more  particularly  the  Lutheran  princes  ;  their  intolerance  to 
each  other  most  unpardonable  ;  and  that  the  conduct  of  some 
of  the  electors  of  Saxony  was  very  despicable,  and  most  in- 
jurious to  the  Protestant  cause  ;  and  finally,  that  all  this  folly 
and  intolerance  led  to  the  thirty  years'  war. 

My  next  statement  was,  that  the  thirty  years'  war,  and  all 
its  dreadful  scenes,  were  occasioned,  in  the  second  place,  by 
the  civil  and  religious  politics,  the  bigoted  and  arbitrary  con- 
duct of  the  princes  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

Here  again  large  blanks  must  be  left.  You  can  only  judge 
of  these  politics  by  reading  the  reigns  of  those  princes.  I 
must  refer  you  to  the  pages  of  Mr.  Coxe. 

I  will  make,  however,  a  few  remarks.  These  princes  were 
Ferdinand  the  First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph,  Matthias,  Ferdi- 
nand the  Second.  The  character  of  Maximilian  deserves  your 
notice. 

It  is  very  agreeable  to  find  among  these  Austrian  princes 
one  sovereign  at  least  like  Maximilian,  whose  conduct  is  mark- 
ed by  justice,  wisdom,  and  benevolence,  and  whose  adminis- 
tration realizes  what  an  historian  would  propose,  as  a  model, 
for  all  those  who  are  called  upon  to  direct  the  affairs  of  man- 
kind. 


328  LECTURE  XIII. 

On  this  account  I  must  observe,  that  there  is  no  period 
connected  with  these  religious  wars  that  deserves  more  to  be 
studied  than  these  reigns  of  Ferdinand  the  First,  Maximilian, 
and  those  of  his  successors  who  preceded  the  thirty  years' 
war.  We  have  no  sovereign  who  exhibited  that  exercise  of 
moderation  and  good  sense  which  a  philosopher  would  require, 
but  Maximilian  ;  and  he  was  immediately  followed  by  princes 
of  a  different  complexion,  and  as  all  the  various  sects  them- 
selves were  ready  from  the  first  to  display  at  any  moment 
those  faults  which  belong  to  human  nature,  when  engaged  in 
religious  concerns,  the  whole  subject  of  toleration  and  mild 
government,  its  advantages  and  its  dangers,  and  the  advantages 
and  dangers  of  an  opposite  system,  are  at  once  presented  to 
our  consideration  ;  and  the  only  observation  that  remains  to  be 
made  is  this,  that  the  difficulties  and  the  hazards  of  the  harsh 
and  unjust  system  are  increased  and  exasperated  by  their 
natural  progress,  while  those  that  belong  to  the  mild  system 
are  chiefly  to  be  expected  at  first  ;  that  they  gradually  disap- 
pear, and  become  less  important,  particularly  as  the  world 
advances  in  civilization  and  knowledge,  and  as  the  thoughts  of 
men  are  more  diversified  by  the  active  pursuits  and  petty 
amusements  which  multiply  with  their  growing  prosperity. 

Nothing  could  be  more  complete  than  the  difficulty  of  tolera- 
tion at  the  time  when  Maximilian  reigned  ;  and  if  a  mild  policy 
could  be  attended  with  favorable  effects  in  his  age  and  nation, 
there  can  be  little  fear  of  the  experiment  at  any  other  period. 

No  party  or  person  in  the  state  was  then  disposed  to  tol- 
erate his  neighbour  from  any  sense  of  the  justice  of  such  for- 
bearance, but  from  motives  of  temporal  policy  alone.  The 
Lutherans,  it  will  be  seen,  could  not  bear  that  the  Calvinists 
should  have  the  same  religious  privileges  with  themselves. 
The  Calvinists  were  equally  opinionated  and  unjust  ;  and 
Maximilian  himself  was  probably  tolerant  and  wise,  chiefly 
because  he  was  in  his  real  opinions  a  Lutheran,  and  in  outward 
profession,  as  the  head  of  the  empire,  a  Roman  Catholic. 

For  twelve  years,  the  whole  of  his  reign,  he  preserved  the 
religious  peace  of  the  community,  without  destroying  the 
religious  freedom  of  the  human  mind.  He  supported  the 
Roman  Catholics,  as  the  predominant  party,  in  all  their  rights, 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  329 

possessions,  and  privileges  ;  but  he  protected  the  Protestants  in 
every  exercise  of  their  religion  which  was  then  practicable. 
In  other  words,  he  was  as  tolerant  and  just  as  the  temper  of 
society  then  admitted,  and  more  so  than  the  state  of  things 
would  have  suggested.  Now,  more  than  this,  no  considerate 
Christian  or  real  philosopher  will  require  from  the  sovereign 
power  at  any  time  ;  not  more  than  to  countenance  toleration,  to 
be  disposed  to  experiments  of  toleration,  and  to  lead  on  to  tol- 
eration, if  the  community  can  but  be  persuaded  to  follow. 
More  than  this  will  not,  1  think,  be  required  from  the  rulers  of 
the  world  by  any  real  philosopher  and  true  Christian  ;  and  this 
not  because  the  great  cause  of  religious  truth  and  inquiry  is  at 
all  indifferent  to  them,  (it  must  always  be  most  dear  to  them,) 
but  because  they  know  that  mankind  on  these  subjects  are  pro- 
foundly ignorant,  and  incurably  irritable.  The  merit  of  Maxi- 
milian was  but  too  apparent  the  moment  that  his  son  Rodolph 
was  called  upon  to  supply  his  place. 

The  tolerance  and  forbearance  of  Maximilian  had  been  favor- 
able, as  it  always  must  be,  to  the  better  cause  ;  but  the  Protes- 
tants, instead  of  being  encouraged  by  the  visible  progress  of 
their  tenets,  and  thereby  induced  to  leave  them  to  the  sure  oper- 
ation of  time,  and  the  silent  influence  of  truth,  had  broken  out 
with  all  the  stupid  fury  that  often  belongs  to  an  inferior  sect, 
and  indulged  themselves  in  the  most  public  attacks  and  unquali- 
fied invectives  against  the  established  church.  The  gentle,  but 
powerful  hand  of  Maximilian  was  now  withdrawn  ;  and  he  had 
made  one  most  fatal  and  unpardonable  mistake  :  he  had  always 
left  the  education  of  his  son  and  successor  too  much  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  his  bigoted  consort.  Rodolph,  his  son,  was  there- 
fore as  ignorant  and  furious  on  his  part,  as  were  the  Protestants 
on  theirs  ;  he  had  immediate  recourse  to  the  usual  expedients, — 
force,  and  the  execution  of  the  laws  to  the  very  letter.  It  is 
needless  to  add,  that  injuries  and  mistakes  quickly  multiplied 
as  he  proceeded  ;  and  Maximilian  himself,  had  he  been  recalled 
to  life,  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  extricate  his  unhappy 
sons  and  his  unfortunate  people  from  the  accumulated  calami- 
ties which  it  had  been  the  great  glory  of  his  own  reign  so  skil- 
fully to  avert.  After  Rodolph  comes  Matthias,  and,  unhappily 
for  all  Europe,  Bohemia  and  the  empire  fell  afterwards  under 

VOL.   i.  42 


330  LECTURE   XIII. 

the  management  of  Ferdinand  the  Second.  Of  the  different 
Austrian  princes,  it  is  the  reign  of  Ferdinand  the  Second  that 
is  more  particularly  to  be  considered. 

Such  was  the  arbitrary  nature  of  his  government  over  his 
subjects  in  Bohemia,  that  they  revolted.  They  elected  for 
their  king  the  young  Elector  Palatine,  hoping  thus  to  extricate 
themselves  from  the  bigotry  and  tyranny  of  Ferdinand.  This 
crown  so  offered  was  accepted  ;  and  in  the  event,  the  cause  of 
the  Bohemians  became  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  in  Ger- 
many, and  the  Elector  Palatine  the  hero  of  that  cause. 

It  is  this  which  gives  the  great  interest  to  this  reign  of 
Ferdinand  the  Second,  to  these  concerns  of  his  subjects  in 
Bohemia,  and  to  the  character  of  this  Elector  Palatine.  For 
all  these  events  and  circumstances  led  to  the  thirty  years'  war. 

I  cannot  here  explain  to  you  the  particular  circumstances 
which  produced  such  unexpected  effects  as  I  have  now  stated, 
but  you  may  study  them  in  Coxe  and  other  historians. 

We  thus  arrive  at  the  thirty  years'  war.  I  will,  however, 
turn  for  a  moment  to  this  Elector  Palatine.  This  is  the  prince 
who  was  connected  with  our  own  royal  family.  He  was  mar- 
ried to  the  daughter  of  our  James  the  First. 

You  will  see,  even  in  our  own  historians,  the  great  interest 
which  the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany,  to  which  I  am  obliged 
so  indistinctly  to  allude,  excited  in  England,  as  well  as  in  all 
the  rest  of  Europe. 

The  history  of  the  Elector  Palatine  is  very  affecting  ;  you 
will  read  it  in  Coxe.  He  accepted,  you  may  remember,  the 
crown  which  was  offered  to  him  by  the  Bohemians  ;  he  was 
unworthy  of  it ;  he  accepted  it  in  an  evil  hour. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  difficulties  of  those  in  exalted 
station  are  peculiarly  great.  It  is  the  condition  of  their  exist- 
ence that  the  happiness  of  others  shall  depend  on  them  ;  shall 
depend  not  only  on  the  high  qualities  of  their  nature,  their  gen- 
erosity, their  courage,  but  on  the  endowments  of  their  minds, 
their  prudence,  their  foresight,  their  correct  judgment,  their 
accurate  estimates  not  only  of  others  but  of  themselves.  So 
unfortunately  are  they  situated,  that  their  ambition  may  be  even 
generous  and  noble,  and  yet  their  characters  be  at  last  justly 
marked  with  the  censure  of  mankind. 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  331 

The  Elector  Palatine,  by  accepting  the  crown  of  Bohemia, 
became,  as  I  have  just  observed,  under  the  existing  circum- 
stances of  Germany,  the  chief  of  the  Protestant  cause  ;  but  he 
undertook  a  cause  so  important,  and  he  suffered  the  lives  and 
liberties  of  thousands  to  depend  on  his  firmness  and  ability,  with- 
out ever  having  properly  examined  his  own  character,  or  con- 
sidered to  what  situations  of  difficulty  his  powers  were  equal. 
When,  therefore,  the  hour  of  trial  came,  when  he  was  weighed 
in  the  balance,  he  was  found  wanting,  and  his  kingdom  was  di- 
vided from  him.  Had  he  himself  been  alone  interested  in  his 
success,  his  subsequent  sufferings  might  have  atoned  for  his 
fault  ;  but  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia  was  lost  to  its  inhabitants, 
the  Palatinate  to  its  own  subjects,  and  the  great  cause  of  reli- 
gious inquiry  and  truth  might  have  also  perished  in  the  general 
wreck  of  his  fortunes. 

But  in  the  reign  of  the  same  Ferdinand  the  Second,  there 
arose,  in  the  same  cause  in  which  the  Elector  Palatine  had 
failed,  a  hero  of  another  cast,  Gustavus  Adolphus. 

And  now,  to  recapitulate  a  little,  that  you  may  see  the  con- 
necting links  of  this  part  of  the  subject,  in  which  I  am  obliged 
to  leave  such  blanks  ;  you  will  have  understood  in  a  general 
manner,  and  T  must  now  remind  you,  that  the  House  of  Aus- 
tria was  the  terror  of  the  Protestants  of  Germany  ;  that  Ferdi- 
nand the  Second  oppressed  by  his  tyranny  and  bigotry  his  Pro- 
testant subjects,  more  particularly  in  Bohemia  ;  that  their  cause 
became  the  cause  of  the  Protestant  interest  in  Germany  ;  that 
the  Elector  Palatine  was  the  first  hero  of  this  great  cause,  and 
that  he  failed  ;  that  the  illustrious  Swede  was  the  second,  and 
that  he  deserved  the  high  office  which  he  bore,  —  that  he  de- 
served to  be  the  defender  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of 
Europe,  and  that  he  was  the  great  object  of  admiration  in  the 
thirty  years'  war. 

Of  this  thirty  years'  war  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  I 
should  speak  here,  even  if  I  had  time,  which  I  have  not,  be- 
cause the  particulars  are  so  interesting,  that  I  can  depend  upon 
your  reading  them.  You  will  do  so,  I  beg  to  assure  you,  with 
great  pleasure,  if  you  once  turn  to  them.  The  narrative  and 
detail  you  will  find  in  Coxe. 

The  campaigns  of  Gustavus,  his  victories,  his  death  ;  the 
campaigns  of  the  generals  he  left  behind  him  ;  the  campaigns 


332  LECTURE  XIII. 

of  the  Austrian  generals,  the  celebrated  Tilly,  the  still  more 
celebrated  Walstein  ;  particulars  respecting  these  subjects,  and 
many  others  highly  attractive,  you  will  in  Coxe  and  in  Harte, 
and  to  these  authors  I  must  leave  you. 

I  will  make,  however,  a  few  remarks,  and  first  of  Gusta- 
vus. 

As  it  must  needs  be  that  offences  will  come,  as  violence  and 
injustice  can  only  be  repelled  by  force,  as  mankind  must  and 
will  have  their  destroyers,  it  is  fortunate  when  the  high  courage 
and  activity  of  which  the  human  character  is  capable,  are 
tempered  with  a  sense  of  justice,  wisdom,  and  benevolence  ; 
when  he  who  leads  thousands  to  the  field  has  sensibility 
enough  to  feel  the  nature  of  his  awful  office,  and  wisdom 
enough  to  take  care  that  he  directs  against  its  proper  objects 
the  afflicting  storm  of  human  devastation.  It  is  not  always 
that  they  who  have  commanded  the  admiration  of  mankind  have 
claims  like  these  to  their  applause.  Courage  and  sagacity  can 
dignify  any  man,  whatever  be  his  cause  ;  they  can  ennoble  a 
wretch  like  Tilly  while  he  fights  the  battles  of  a  Ferdinand. 
It  is  not  always  that  these  great  endowments  are  so  united  with 
other  high  qualities,  as  to  present  to  the  historian  at  once  a 
Christian,  a  soldier,  and  a  statesman  ;  yet  such  was  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  a  hero  deserving  the  name,  perfectly  distinguisha- 
ble from  those  who  have  assumed  the  honors  that  belong  to  it, 
the  military  executioners,  with  whom  every  age  has  been  in- 
fested. 

The  life  of  this  extraordinary  man  has  been  written  by  Mr. 
Harte,  with  great  activity  of  research,  and  a  scrupulous  exam- 
ination of  his  materials,  which  are  understood  to  be  the  best, 
though  they  are  not  sufficiently  particularized.  The  book 
will  disappoint  the  reader.  Mr.  Harte  writes  often  with  sin- 
gular bad  taste,  and  never  with  any  masterly  display  of  his 
subject  ;  but  it  may  be  compared  with  Coxe,  and  must  be  con- 
sidered. 

The  great  question  which  it  is  necessary  for  the  fame  of 
Gustavus  should  be  settled  in  his  favor,  is  the  invasion  of 
Germany.  Sweden,  the  country  of  which  he  was  king,  could, 
at  the  time,  furnish  for  the  enterprise  only  her  two  great 
products,  "  iron  and  man,  the  soldier  and  his  sword  ;  "  and 
with  these,  a  leader  like  Gustavus,  some  centuries  before, 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  333 

might  have  disposed  of  Europe  at  his  pleasure  ;  but,  happily 
for  mankind,  the  invention  of  gunpowder  and  the  progress  of 
science  had  made  war  a  question,  not  merely  of  physical  force, 
but  of  expense.  The  surplus  produce  of  the  land  and  labor 
of  the  snowy  regions  of  Sweden  were  little  fitted  to  support 
a  large  military  establishment  either  at  home  or  abroad,  lit- 
tle fitted  to  contend  with  the  resources  of  the  House  of  Aus- 
tria. It  was,  therefore,  very  natural  for  the  counsellors  of 
Gustavus  to  represent  strongly  to  their  sovereign  the  expenses 
of  a  war  on  the  continent,  the  great  power  of  the  emperor, 
and  the  reasonableness  of  supposing  that  the  German  electors 
were  themselves  the  best  judges  of  the  affairs  of  the  empire, 
and  the  best  able  to  vindicate  their  own  civil  and  religious 
liberties. 

But  it  was  clear,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  power  of  the 
House  of  Austria,  which  had  already  distantly  menaced,  might 
soon  be  enabled  to  oppress,  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of 
Sweden  :  it  was  impossible  to  separate  the  interests  of  that 
kingdom  from  those  of  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany  ; 
and,  therefore,  the  only  question  that  remained  was,  whether 
Gustavus  should  come  forward  as  a  leader  of  the  combination 
against  Ferdinand  the  Second,  or  wait  to  be  called  in,  and  join 
the  general  cause  as  an  auxiliary. 

Now  the  prince,  who  was  naturally  the  head  of  the  Protes- 
tant union,  was  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  a  prince  whose  politics 
and  conduct  at  the  time  could  only  awaken,  in  the  minds  of 
good  men,  contempt  and  abhorrence.  If,  therefore,  no  one 
interfered,  and  that  immediately,  all  was  lost  ;  and  the  very 
want  of  a  principal,  and  the  very  hopelessness  of  the  Prosestant 
cause,  must  have  been  the  very  arguments  that  weighed  most 
with  a  prince  like  Gustavus,  and  were  indeed  the  very  argu- 
ments that  would  have  influenced  an  impartial  reasoner,  at  the 
time,  in  favor  of  this  great  attempt,  provided  the  abilities  of 
Gustavus  were  clearly  of  a  commanding  nature. 

On  this  last  supposition,  it  must  also  be  allowed  that  the 
case,  when  examined,  supplied  many  important  probabilities 
to  countenance  the  enterprise.  Speculations  of  this  kind  you 
should  indulge,  as  much  as  possible,  while  you  are  engaged 
in  historical  pursuits  ;  it  is  the  difference  between  reading  his- 
tory and  studying  it. 


334  LECTURE  XIII. 

After  all,  it  is  often  for  genius  to  justify  its  own  projects  by 
their  execution  ;  and  such  may,  if  necessary,  be  the  defence 
of  Gustavus. 

If  any  war  can  be  generous  and  just,  it  is  that  waged  by  a 
combination  of  smaller  states  against  a  greater  in  defence  of 
their  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Such  was  the  contest  in  which 
Gustavus  was  to  engage.  Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  want- 
ing to  him  but  success.  He  won  it  by  his  virtues  and  capacity, 
and  his  name  has  been  justly  consecrated  in  the  history  of 
mankind. 

It  sometimes  happens,  that  when  the  master  hand  is  re- 
moved, the  machine  stops,  or  its  movements  run  into  incurable 
disorder  ;  but  Gustavus  was  greater  than  great  men  :  when 
Gustavus  perished,  his  cause  did  not  perish  with  him.  The 
mortal  part  of  the  hero  lay  covered  with  honorable  wounds  and 
breathless  in  the  plains  of  Lutzen  ;  but  his  genius  still  lived  in 
the  perfect  soldiers  he  had  created,  the  great  generals  he  had 
formed,  the  wise  minister  he  had  employed,  and  the  senate  and 
people  of  Sweden,  whom  he  had  elevated  to  his  own  high 
sense  of  honor  and  duty.  Neither  his  generals,  his  soldiers, 
his  minister,  nor  his  people,  were  found  so  unworthy  of  their 
sovereign  as  to  be  daunted  by  his  loss,  and  they  were  not  to 
be  deterred  from  the  prosecution  of  the  great  cause  which  he 
had  bequeathed  them.  The  result  was,  that  sixteen  years 
afterwards,  at  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  Sweden  was  a  leading 
power  in  the  general  settlement  of  the  interests  of  Europe ; 
and  if  Gustavus  had  yet  lived,  he  would  have  seen  the  very 
ground  on  which  he  first  landed  with  only  fourteen  thousand 
men  to  oppose  the  numerous  and  regular  armies  of  the  House 
of  Austria  publicly  ceded  to  his  crown,  the  power  of  that 
tyrannical  and  bigoted  family  confessedly  humbled,  and  the 
independence  and  religion  of  his  own  kingdom  sufficiently 
provided  for  in  the  emancipation  and  safety  of  the  Protestant 
princes  of  Germany. 

In  considering  the  reign  and  merits  of  Gustavus,  our  atten- 
tion may  be  properly  directed  to  the  following  points  :  —  the 
invasion  of  Germany,  the  improvements  which  the  king  made 
in  the  military  art,  the  means  whereby  he  could  support  his 
armies,  the  causes  of  his  success,  his  conduct  after  the  victory 
of  Leipsic,  his  management  of  men  and  of  the  circumstances 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  335 

of  his  situation,  his  private  virtues  and  public  merits,  his  toler- 
ance, and  the  nature  of  his  ambition,  —  how  far  it  was  altered 
by  his  victories,  —  the  service  he  rendered  Europe.  Much 
assistance  is  contained  rather  than  presented  to  the  reader  in 
the  work  of  Harte. 

The  history  of  the  thirty  years'  war  has  been  written  by 
Schiller  ;  and  when  this  era  has  been  considered  in  the  more 
simple  and  regular  historians,  the  performance  of  this  celebrated 
writer  may  be  perused,  not  only  with  great  entertainment,  but 
with  some  advantage.  Indeed,  any  work  by  Schiller  must 
naturally  claim  our  perusal ;  but  neither  is  his  account  so  in- 
telligible nor  his  opinions  so  just  as  those  of  our  own  historian 
Coxe. 

The  extraordinary  character  of  Walstein,  —  the  great  general 
who  could  alone  be  opposed  by  Ferdinand  to  Gustavus, — was 
sure  to  catch  the  fancy  of  a  German  dramatist  like  Schiller. 
Here,  for  once,  were  realized  all  the  darling  images  of  the 
scene  :  mystery  without  any  possible  solution  ;  energy  more 
than  human,  magnificence  without  bounds,  distinguished  ca- 
pacity ;  gloom,  silence,  and  terror  ;  injuries  and  indignation  ; 
nothing  ordinary,  nothing  rational ;  and,  at  last,  probably  a 
conspiracy,  and,  at  least,  an  assassination. 

The  campaigns  of  Gustavus,  and  the  military  part  of  his 
history,  will  be  found  more  than  usually  interesting.  Coxe  has 
labored  this  portion  of  the  narrative  with  great  diligence,  and, 
as  he  evidently  thinks,  with  great  success. 

We  are  now  arrived  at  the  conclusion  of  our  subject,  and  I 
have  been  obliged  to  refer  to  such  large  masses  of  historical 
reading,  and  must  have  left  so  many  spaces  unoccupied  in  the 
minds  of  my  hearers,  that  I  think  it  best  to  stop  and  recall  to 
your  observation  the  steps  of  our  progress,  and  advert  to  the 
leading  points. 

The  whole  of  our  present  subject,  then,  should,  I  think,  be 
separated  into  the  following  great  divisions  ;  first,  we  are  to 
examine  the  contest  between  the  Roman  Catholics  and  the 
Reformers,  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  to  the 
peace  of  Passau,  then  the  provisions  of  that  peace.  Next, 
the  causes  of  the  thirty  years'  war,  which  were,  first,  the 
conduct  of  the  Protestant  states  and  princes,  Lutheran  and 
Calvinistic,  from  the  death  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  their 


336  LECTURE  XIII. 

impolitic  and  fatal  intolerance  of  each  other  ;  secondly,  the 
conduct  of  the  princes  of  the  House  of  Austria,  Ferdinand  the 
First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph,  Matthias,  and  Ferdinand  the 
Second,  more  particularly  their  intolerance  to  their  subjects  in 
Bohemia  and  Hungary  ;  then,  the  peculiar  circumstances  in 
consequence  of  which  the  cause  of  the  Bohemians,  and  the 
oppressed  subjects  of  the  House  of  Austria,  became  at  length 
the  cause  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  and  the  Elector 
Palatine  the  hero  of  it ;  next,  the  misfortunes  of  that  prince  ; 
then  the  interference  and  character  of  the  renowned  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  the  great  and  efficient  hero  of  that  cause,  and  of  the 
thirty  years'  war,  at  which  we  thus  arrive  ;  then  the  campaigns 
between  him  and  the  celebrated  generals  (Tilly  and  others) 
employed  by  the  Austrian  family,  which  form  a  new  point  of 
interest.  Again,  the  continuance  of  the  contest  after  his  death, 
under  the  generals  and  soldiers  he  had  formed,  which  becomes 
another  ;  and  in  this  manner  we  are  conducted  to  the  settlement 
of  the  civil  and  religious  differences  of  Germany  by  the  treaty 
of  Westphalia,  more  than  one  hundred  years  after  the  first 
appearance  of  Luther,  which  treaty  is  thus  left,  as  the  remain- 
ing object  of  our  curiosity  and  examination,  for  it  is  the  ter- 
mination of  the  whole  subject. 

This  celebrated  treaty  has  always  been  the  study  of  those 
who  wish  to  understand  the  history  of  Europe,  and  the  differ- 
ent views  and  systems  of  its  component  powers  and  stales. 

There  are  references  in  Coxe  sufficient  to  direct  the  inqui- 
ries of  those  who  are  desirous  of  examining  it.  But  during 
the  late  calamities  of  Europe,  after  being  an  object  of  the 
greatest  attention  for  a  century  and  a  half,  it  has  shared  the  fate 
of  every  thing  human  ;  it  has  passed  through  its  appointed 
period  of  existence,  and  is  now  no  more. 

As  a  great  record,  however,  in  the  history  of  Europe  ;  as  a 
great  specimen  of  what  human  nature  is,  when  acting  amid  its 
larger  and  more  important  concerns,  it  must  ever  remain  a  sub- 
ject of  interest  to  the  politician  and  philosopher.  This  treaty 
was  the  final  adjustment  of  the  civil  and  religious  disputes  of 
a  century. 

In  examining  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  the  first  inquiry  is 
with  respect  to  its  ecclesiastical  provisions. 

After  the   Reformation  had  once  begun,  the  first  effort  of 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  337 

the  Protestants  was  to  put  themselves  into  a  state  of  respect, 
and  to  get  themselves  acknowledged  by  the  laws  of  the  empire. 
In  this  they  succeeded  at  the  peace  of  Passau. 

But  the  ecclesiastical  reservation,  as  1  have  before  men- 
tioned, had  then  ordained  that  if  a  Roman  Catholic  turned  Prot- 
estant, his  benefice  should  be  lost  to  him. 

Truth,  therefore,  had  no  equal  chance  :  a  serious  impedi- 
ment was  thrown  in  the  way,  not  only  of  conviction,  but  of  all 
avowal  of  conviction,  and  even  of  all  religious  inquiry.  For 
with  what  candor,  with  what  ardor,  was  any  ecclesiastic  to 
inquire,  when  the  result  of  his  inquiry  might  be,  that  he  would 
have  to  lose  not  only  his  situation  in  society,  but  his  accus- 
tomed means  of  subsistence  ?  This  point,  however,  could 
never  be  carried  by  the  Protestants. 

The  Roman  Catholics  considered  the  reservation  as  the  bul- 
wark of  their  faith,  and  found  no  difficulty  in  persuading  the 
people,  and  more  particularly  the  rulers  of  the  people,  that 
their  cause  was  the  cause  of  all  true  religion  and  good  govern- 
ment. At  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  therefore,  it  was  agreed, 
that  if  a  Catholic  turned  Protestant,  he  should  lose  his  benefice 
as  before,  and  the  same  if  a  Protestant  turned  Catholic.  But 
it  will  be  observed,  that  to  make  the  last  provision  was,  in  fact, 
to  do  nothing  ;  for  the  Protestant  was  the  invading  sect.  There 
was  no  chance  of  the  Protestant's  turning  Roman  Catholic,  and 
the  only  question  of  practical  importance  was,  whether  the  Ca- 
tholic might  be  allowed  to  open  his  eyes,  and,  if  he  thought 
good,  turn  Protestant  without  suffering  in  his  fortunes.  This 
he  could  not ;  the  eyes  of  the  Protestant  were  already  opened. 

The  great  cause,  therefore,  of  religious  inquiry  at  least 
(there  was  no  doubt  a  great  difficulty  in  the  case)  failed,  but 
not  entirely.  For  the  inroads  that  the  Protestants  had  made 
on  the  Catholic  ecclesiastical  property,  during  the  first  cen- 
tury of  the  Reformation,  down,  for  instance,  to  the  year  1624, 
were  not  inconsiderable  ;  and  in  the  possessions  which  they 
had  thus  obtained,  they  were  not  to  be  disturbed  ;  a  certain 
progress,  —  an  important  progress,  —  was  therefore  made  and 
secured. 

Again,  (what  is  very  remarkable,)  the  civil  rights  of  the 
Protestants,  their  equality  with  their  Catholic  brethren  on 

VOL.   i.  43 


338  LECTURE  XIII. 

all  public  occasions,  in  the  diet  and  other  tribunals,  were  al- 
lowed. 

This  was  an  important  victory  ;  far  more  than  inferior  sects 
have  been  always  able  to  obtain,  more  than  they  have  obtained 
for  instance,  in  our  own  country  ;  far  more  than  can  be  ac- 
counted for  by  any  influence  which  moderation  and  good  sense 
could  have  had  upon  the  contending  parties. 

Another  result  took  place  :  the  Calvinists  and  Lutherans 
contrived  at  last,  to  consider  themselves  as  one  body,  whose 
business  it  was,  during  the  negotiations  of  the  peace  and  ever 
after,  to  provide  for  their  common  security,  while  equally  re- 
sisting the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

This,  too,  was  an  important  victory,  a  victory  which  the 
two  sects  obtained,  not  over  their  enemies,  but  over  themselves, 
partly  in  consequence  of  their  past  sufferings,  still  more  from 
the  influence  of  their  own  worldly  politics  ;  above  all,  from  the 
master  interference  of  France,  whose  ministers,  equally  disre- 
garding the  distinctions  between  Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  and 
the  cause  of  Protestant  and  Papist,  wished  only  to  subdue  the 
House  of  Austria,  and  to  combine  and  manage  every  party  so 
as  to  produce  this  grand  effect,  the  object  of  all  their  politics  ; 
the  humiliation  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

The  future  progress  of  religious  truth  seems  to  have  been 
but  loosely  provided  for.  A  prince  was  allowed  to  change 
or  reform  the  religion  of  his  dominions  in  all  cases  not  limited 
by  the  treaty,  or  settled  by  antecedent  compact  with  the 
subject. 

The  truth  is,  that  a  question  like  this  last  was  too  delicate 
to  be  adjusted  by  any  formal  ordinance  in  an  age  of  religious 
wars,  or  indeed  in  any  age. 

The  general  principle  adopted  by  the  treaty  seems  to  have 
been,  to  confirm  every  thing  in  the  state  it  was  left  by  the 
year  1624,  an  arrangement  that  must,  on  the  whole,  be  con- 
sidered favorable  to  the  Protestants,  far  more  so  than  could 
have  been  expected,  if  we  reflect  on  their  own  unfortunate 
intolerance  of  each  other,  and  the  difficulty,  at  all  times, 
of  sustaining  a  combination  of  smaller  powers  against  a 
greater. 

The  great  gainer  in  this  contest  was  France  ;  the  great 
sufferer  the  House  of  Austria.  The  grandeur  of  the  one  was 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  339 

advanced,  and  the  ambition  of  the  other  was  for  ever  hum- 
bled. 

A  combination  against  the  House  of  Austria  had  been  long 
carried  on  with  more  or  less  regularity  and  effect,  but  chiefly 
by  the  influence  of  France.  The  result  of  this  united  effort, 
was  seen  in  the  peace  of  Westphalia. 

It  is  painful  to  think  that  the  establishment  of  the  civil  and 
religious  liberties  of  Germany  was  owing,  not  to  the  gener- 
ous, rational,  steady  resistance  of  the  Protestant  princes,  but 
much  more  to  the  anxiety  of  France  to  depress  the  House  of 
Austria  ;  and  again,  to  the  check  which  that  House  of  Austria 
continually  experienced  to  its  designs,  and  was  still  likely  to 
experience,  from  the  arms  of  the  Ottoman  princes. 

In  this  manner  it  happened,  that,  for  the  religious  part  of  the 
great  treaty  of  Westphalia ;  for  such  toleration,  good  sense, 
and  Christianity  as  are  to  be  found  there,  mankind  were,  after 
all,  indebted  principally  to  such  strange  propagators  of  the 
cause  of  truth  and  free  inquiry,  as  Richelieu  and  the  Mahom- 
etans. 

By  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  the  apprehensions  which  Eu- 
rope had  so  long  entertained  of  the  power  of  the  House  of 
Austria  were,  as  I  have  just  mentioned  to  you,  removed. 

But  it  is  the  great  misfortune  of  mankind,  that  the  balance  is 
no  sooner  restored  by  the  diminishing  of  one  exorbitant  power, 
than  it  is  again  in  danger  by  the  preponderancy  of  another. 
From  this  epoch  of  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  the  real  power 
to  be  dreaded  was  no  longer  the  House  of  Austria  but  France  ; 
and  the  ambition  of  her  cabinets,  the  compactness  of  her  pos- 
sessions, the  extent  of  her  resources,  and  the  genius  of  her 
people,  soon  converted  into  the  enemy  of  the  happiness  of 
the  world,  that  very  nation  which  at  the  peace  of  Westphalia 
appeared,  and  but  appeared ,  in  the  honorable  character  of  the 
protectress  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  Germany,  and 
the  mediatrix  of  the  dissensions  of  a  century.  In  the  empire, 
the  different  states  and  princes  were  now  more  protected  than 
before  from  the  emperor,  but  they  were  not  harmonized  into 
a  whole,  nor  was  it  possible  that  a  number  of  petty  sovereigns 
should  be  influenced  by  any  general  principle.  It  was  impos- 
sible that  they  should  form  themselves  either  into  any  limited 
monarchy,  or  fall  into  any  system  ;  which,  however  it  might 


340  LECTURE  XIII. 

have  advanced  the  substantial  greatness  of  all,  would  have 
diminished  the  personal  splendor  and  fancied  importance  of 
each  individual  potentate. 

They  therefore  continued  in  their  common  form  of  union 
and  law,  and  endeavoured  to  maintain  the  independence  of  the 
several  princes  and  states  by  a  league  for  their  common  inter- 
est ;  but  this  league  could  not  possibly  be  made  sufficiently 
binding  and  effective  to  secure  that  common  interest,  while 
they  were  exposed  to  the  practices  of  foreign  intrigue,  not 
only  from  their  situation,  but  from  the  improvident  selfishness 
which  belongs  as  well  to  states  as  to  individuals.  Thus  it 
happened  that  France,  or  any  other  power,  found  it  easy  at 
all  times  to  convert  a  portion  of  the  strength  of  Germany  to 
its  own  purposes.  Thus  it  happened  that  this  immense  divis- 
ion of  the  most  civilized  portion  of  the  world,  never  rose  to 
that  external  consequence,  and  what  is  more,  never  to  that 
state  of  internal  improvement  and  happiness,  which,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  it  might  certainly  have  realized. 

I  must  now  make  two  general  observations,  and  conclude  : 
first,  on  the  House  of  Austria  ;  secondly,  on  the  peace  of 
Westphalia. 

There  is  no  pleasure  in  reading  the  history  of  these  princes 
of  the  House  of  Austria.  At  the  most  critical  period  of  the 
world  they  were  the  greatest  impediments  to  its  improvement  ; 
every  resistance  possible  was  made  to  the  Reformation  by 
Charles  the  Fifth.  Philip  the  Second  is  proverbial  for  his 
tyranny  and  bigotry.  If  we  turn  from  the  Spanish  to  the  Ger- 
man line  of  this  house,  we  see  nothing,  except  in  one  instance 
(that  of  Maximilian),  but  the  most  blind  and  unfeeling  hostility 
to  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  mankind.  In  this  line  are 
numbered,  Ferdinand  the  First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph,  Mat- 
thias. Ferdinand  the  First  we  see  always  employed  in  tyran- 
nizing over  his  kingdoms  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia.  In  his 
measures  we  can  discern  only  the  most  continued  violation  of 
every  principle  which  should  animate  a  legislator.  Instead  of 
rational  attempts  to  train  up  the  bold  privileges  of  a  rude  people 
into  some  political  system,  properly  modified  and  adapted  to 
the  dispensation  of  more  secure  and  practical  freedom,  we 
see  force  and  fury,  and  command  and  authority,  and  all  the 
machinery  of  harsh  and  arbitrary  government,  drawn  out  and 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  341 

employed  to  harass,  subjugate,  and  destroy  a  spirited  people, — 
a  people  that  deserved  a  better  fate,  by  no  means  incapable  of 
attachment  to  their  rulers,  and  perfectly  susceptible  of  a  sin- 
cere and  ardent  devotion  to  their  Creator. 

Was  there  any  worldly  policy  in  such  outrages  and  injustice  ? 
Instead  of  affectionate  and  zealous  subjects  to  be  interposed 
between  the  dearest  possessions  of  the  House  of  Austria  and 
the  Turks,  men  only  were  to  be  seen  ever  ready  to  break  out 
into  insurrection  (mutinous  chiefs),  rebels  to  the  power  of  the 
crown,  candidates  for  the  crown  itself ;  men  who  were  the 
sources  of  terror  and  embarrassment  to  the  empire,  not  its 
defenders,  or  the  guardians  of  the  general  security  and  repose. 

Nothing  better  can  be  said  of  Rodolph  the  Second,  and 
Matthias  ;  and  Ferdinand  the  Second,  under  whom  the  thirty 
years'  war  broke  out,  was,  as  nearly  as  human  bigotry  and 
tyranny  would  admit,  the  very  counterpart  of  Philip  the  Second 
of  Spain. 

Men  like  these  should  be  pointed  out  in  history  to  statesmen 
and  to  sovereigns,  as  examples  of  all  that  they  should  in  their 
public  capacities  avoid,  not  imitate.  And  this  lesson  is  the 
more  important,  because  these  princes  were  men,  not  only  of 
princely  virtues,  of  elevation  of  mind  in  adversity,  of  patience 
and  of  fortitude,  and  of  great  attention  to  business,  but  men  of 
very  sincere,  though  mistaken  piety  ;  Ferdinand  the  Second, 
more  particularly,  while  his  public  conduct  exhibited  the  most 
unprincipled  lust  of  power,  and  the  most  unfeeling  bigotry,  was 
in  private  life  the  best  of  fathers,  of  husbands,  and  of  masters ; 
and  whenever  the  religion  of  mercy  was  not  concerned,  was 
merciful  and  forgiving. 

My  second  observation  is  connected  with  the  treaty  of  West- 
phalia, and  relates  to  the  general  condition  and  progress  of  the 
religious  and  political  happiness  of  mankind. 

What  is  the  history  of  that  religious  and  political  happiness, 
the  history  as  here  presented  to  us,  in  this  final  adjustment  by 
the  peace  of  Westphalia  ?  Consider  it. 

A  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  had  been  excited  in  a  monk 
of  Whtemberg  ;  and  so  prepared  had  been  mankind  at  the 
time,  that  this  spirit  had  passed  from  his  closet  and  solitary 
thoughts,  into  the  cabinets  and  the  councils,  the  mind  and 


342  LECTURE  XIII. 

the  feelings  of  Europe.  What  then  was  at  last  the  result  ? 
What  were  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of  Westphalia  ? 

Did  not  the  cause  of  reason  and  of  truth  everywhere  pre- 
vail ?  and  was  not  a  new  profession  of  religious  faith  every- 
where the  consequence  ?  Not  so. 

Again  ;  a  great  family  had  risen  in  Europe,  arbitrary  and 
ambitious, — the  family  of  the  House  of  Austria.  Did  not 
all  the  states  and  powers  whose  interests  could  be  affected, 
instantly  unite  in  a  common  cause,  and,  without  difficulty, 
restrain  and  diminish  the  power  of  this  universal  enemy  ? 
Not  exactly  so  ;  not  with  such  readiness,  not  with  such  ease. 

Again  ;  the  whole  regions  of  Germany  were  parcelled  out 
among  a  number  of  cities  and  states,  of  princes  and  powers, 
ecclesiastical  and  secular. 

Did  not  the  different  parts  and  members  of  a  system  so 
unfitted  for  mutual  advancement  and  strength,  coalesce  into 
some  general  form,  some  great  limited  monarchy,  which  might 
have  protected  the  whole,  not  only  from  themselves,  but  from 
the  great  monarchies  of  France  and  Spain  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  Turkish  arms  on  the  other  ?  Not  so. 

In  answer  to  all  such  inquiries,  it  must  be  confessed,  that 
the  affairs  of  mankind  cannot  be  made  to  run  in  these  regular 
channels  ;  or  their  jarring  interests  and  prejudices  be  moulded 
into  the  convenient  and  beautiful  forms  which  a  philosophic 
mind  might  readily  propose.  Some  effort,  some  approxima- 
tion to  a  reasonable  conduct  in  mankind  is  generally  visible  : 
a  struggle  between  light  and  darkness,  from  time  to  time  an 
amelioration,  an  improvement,  — at  the  period  of  the  Reforma- 
tion for  instance, — no  doubt,  an  advance  most  distinct  and 
important  ;  the  seeds  of  human  prosperity,  after  each  renova- 
tion of  the  soil,  somewhat  more  plentifully  scattered  ;  the 
harvests  continually  less  and  less  overpowered  by  the  tares. 
All  this  is  discernible  as  we  journey  down  the  great  tract 
of  history,  and  more  than  this  is  perhaps  but  seldom  to  be 
perceived. 

But  what  then  is  the  practical  conclusion  from  the  whole  ? 
That  the  virtue  of  those  men  is  only  the  greater,  who,  in  the 
midst  of  difficulty  and  discouragement,  labor  much,  though 
they  have  been  taught  by  reading,  reflection,  and  perhaps 
experience,  to  expect  but  little  ;  who,  whatever  may  be  the 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 


343 


failures  of  themselves  or  others  in  their  endeavours  to  serve 
their  fellow-creatures,  are  neither  depressed  into  torpor,  nor 
exasperated  into  misanthropy  ;  who  take  care  to  deserve  suc- 
cess, but  who  do  not  think  that  success  is  necessary  to  their 
merit ;  who  fix  their  eyes  steadily  on  the  point  of  cluty,  and 
never  cease,  according  to  the  measure  of  the  talents  with  which 
they  are  intrusted  by  their  Creator,  to  unite  their  efforts,  and 
embark  their  strength,  in  the  great  and  constant  cause  of  wise 
and  good  men,  the  advancement  of  the  knowledge  and  the  vir- 
tue, that  is,  in  other  words,  of  the  happiness  of  their  species. 


LECTURE  XIV. 

HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  —  ELIZABETH.  —  JAMES  THE 
FIRST.  — CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 

WE  must  now  turn  to  England.  During  the  reign  of  a  prince 
so  respected  for  his  courage  and  understanding,  and  so  tyranni- 
cal in  his  nature,  as  Henry  the  Eighth,  in  the  interval  between 
the  decline  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  rise  of  the  commons,  the 
constitution  of  England  seems  to  have  been  exposed  to  the 
most  extreme  danger,  and  if  Henry  had  lived  longer,  or  if  his 
successor  had  resembled  him  in  capacity  and  disposition,  this 
island,  like  France,  might  have  lost  its  liberties  for  ever. 

It  appears  that  the  slavish  submission  of  parliaments  had 
proceeded  at  length,  to  allow  to  the  proclamations  of  the  king 
an  authority  which,  notwithstanding  the  remarkable  limitations 
annexed  to  it,  might  eventually  have  been  extended,  in  prac- 
tice, to  the  destruction  of  all  other  authority  in  the  realm. 

It  is  true  that  this  act  was  not  obtained  till  the  thirty-first  of 
his  reign,  and  within  a  few  years  of  his  death  ;  but  in  about  ten 
years  after  his  accession,  it  appears  from  Lord  Herbert,  who 
wrote  a  life  of  him,  that  he  had  caused  to  be  made  "  a  general 
muster  and  description  of  the  value  of  every  man's  land,  as 
also  the  stock  on  the  lands,  and  who  was  owner  thereof,  and 
the  value  and  substance  of  every  person  above  sixteen."  —  Her- 
bert, p.  122,  ami.  1522.  In  consequence  whereof  he  demand- 
ed a  loan,  &c.,  from  his  subjects,  not  fresh  supplies  from  the 
commons.;  so  that  the  intentions  of  the  king  and  his  council 
were  sufficiently  clear. 

But  there  can  be  no  stronger  testimony  to  the  right  of  the 
houses  of  parliament  to  tax,  or  rather  to  concur  in  the  taxa- 
tion of  the  people,  than  the  result  of  the  utmost  efforts  of 
the  king  and  Cardinal  Wolsey,  to  obtain  money  without 
their  sanction.  "  All  which  extraordinary  ways  of  finishing 


HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  345 

the  present  usurpations,"  says  the  historian,  "  ended  in  a  par- 
liament the  next  year." 

In  this  next  year,  it  seems,  the  cardinal  himself  personally 
interfered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  particulars  are 
very  curious. 

On  the  whole,  the  king,  as  it  afterwards  appeared,  could 
direct  and  limit  the  Reformation  at  his  will  ;  could  manage  at 
his  pleasure  the  morality  and  religion  of  the  Commons,  but 
not  their  property. 

In  1525,  an  attempt  was  made  once  more  to  raise  money 
without  parliament,  but  the  people  showed  the  spirit  of  Eng- 
lishmen, for  while  they  pleaded  their  own  poverty,  they  al- 
leged, in  the  first  place,  "that  these  commissions  were  against 
the  law  ;"  (Herbert,  page  152).  And  the  king  at  last  dis- 
avowed the  whole  proceedings,  "  and  by  letters,"  says  the 
historian,  "  sent  through  all  the  counties  of  England,  declared 
he  would  have  nothing  of  them  but  by  way  of  benevolence." 
Even  with  respect  to  the  benevolence,  the  narrative,  as  given 
by  Herbert,  is  curious  ;  still  more  so,  when  a  benevolence 
was  again  tried,  and  again  clearly  resisted,  in  1544. 

Opposition  was  constantly  made,  though  the  judges  author- 
ized this  expedient  in  tbe  first  instance,  and  though  in  the 
latter,  Read,  a  magistrate  of  the  city,  who  refused  compliance, 
was,  by  a  great  outrage,  sent  to  serve  in  the  wars  against  the 
Scots,  and  treated  in  a  manner  perfectly  atrocious. 

It  always  appears,  that  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to 
parliament,  and  the  king  in  his  last  words,  though  the  most 
decided  and  detestable  of  tyrants,  u  thanked  them,  because 
they  had,  freely  of  their  own  minds,  granted  to  him  a  certain 
subsidy." 

Slavish,  therefore,  and  base  as  these  parliaments  were,  the 
members  of  them  did  not  entirely  forfeit  the  character  of  Eng- 
lishmen. 

With  respect,  however,  to  the  great  point  of  the  very  ex- 
istence of  our  legislative  assemblies,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that 
from  the  violent,  cruel,  and  unprincipled  measures  into  which 
Henry  was  so  repeatedly  hurried,  he  had  continually  to  apply 
to  his  parliaments,  which  kept  up  the  use  of  them  at  this  most 
critical  era  in  our  constitution. 

In  France,  on  the  contrary,  Francis  the  First  could  always 

VOL.  i.  44 


346  LECTUEE  XIV. 

contrive  to  do  without  his  national  assemblies  ;  a  circumstance 
which  most  unhappily,  and  most  materially,  contributed  to  their 
decline  and  fall. 

In  England,  on  the  death  of  Henry,  the  real  nature  of  the 
constitution  was  immediately  shown.  The  very  first  years  of 
the  minority  of  his  son,  Edward  the  Sixth,  produced  repeals 
of  those  acts,  which  had  violated  the  acknowledged  liberties 
of  the  country. 

But  a  bad  minister  could  so  impose  upon  the  excellent 
nature  even  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  as  to  cause  him  to  issue,  at 
the  close  of  his  reign,  a  proclamation  intended  to  influence  the 
election  of  members  in  parliament ;  a  precedent  which  wras 
sure  to  be  followed  by  such  a  princess  as  Mary,  and  after- 
wards, though  probably  with  less  ill  intention,  by  Jarnes  the 
First. 

So  innumerable  are  the  perils  to  which  the  liberties  of  the 
subject  are  always  exposed. 

I  hasten  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  "  In  order  to  under- 
stand," says  Mr.  Hume,  "  the  ancient  constitution  of  Eng- 
land, there  is  not  a  period  which  deserves  more  to  be  studied 
than  the  reign  of  Elizabeth."  And  it  happens,  that  there  can 
be  no  period  of  our  history  which  may  be  more  thoroughly 
studied.  Camden  has  written  her  life.  There  are  very  val- 
uable collections  of  letters  and  papers  ;  you  may  trace  them 
in  the  references  of  Hume  and  Rapin,  and  many  curious  and 
amusing,  and  sometimes  important  particulars,  have  been  lately 
drawn  from  these  sources,  and  presented  to  the  ordinary 
reader  in  a  very  agreeable  and  sensible  manner  by  Miss  Aikin, 
in  her  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  It  is,  how- 
ever, the  constitutional  part  of  this  history  that  I  can  myself 
alone  allude  to. 

Hume,  after  making  the  remark  I  have  alluded  to,  proceeds 
to  state  the  very  arbitrary  nature  of  the  constitution,  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  conduct  and  maxims  of  that  queen,  and  of  the 
ministers  at  that  time.  On  the  whole,  he  makes  out  a  strong 
case  to  show  the  existence  of  such  tribunals,  such  principles, 
and  such  practices,  as  seem  in  themselves  totally  inconsistent 
with  all  civil  freedom,  however  qualified  the  idea  which  we 
should  affix  to  the  term. 

But  this  reign,  it  must  on  the  other  hand  be  remembered, 


ELIZABETH.  347 

exhibits  not  only  (as  Hume  endeavours  to  prove)  the  strength 
and  extent  of  the  royal  prerogative,  but  also  unveils  and  shows, 
though  at  a  distance,  all  those  more  popular  principles  which 
equally  belonged  to  the  constitution  of  England,  and  all  those 
reasonings  and  maxims,  and  even  parties  and  descriptions  of 
patriotism,  which  grew  up  afterwards  into  such  visible  strength 
and  form,  during  the  reigns  of  her  successors,  James  and 
Charles. 

For  instance,  and  to  illustrate  both  views  of  the  constitution, 
—  the  arbitrary  and  the  popular  nature  of  it. 

Whatever  concerned  the  royal  prerogative,  was  considered 
by  Elizabeth  as  forbidden  ground,  and  she  included  within  this 
description,  in  a  religious  age,  every  thing  that  related  to  the 
management  of  religion,  to  her  particular  courts,  and  to  the 
succession  to  the  crown  ;  she  insisted  in  her  own  words,  "  that 
no  bills  touching  matters  of  state,  or  reformation  in  concerns 
ecclesiastical,  should  be  exhibited."  —  Cobbett,  p.  889. 

This  will  give  you  some  idea  of  Hume's  view  of  the  reign, 
and  of  the  arbitrary  nature  of  it  ;  and  certainly  it  is  quite  dis- 
gusting to  observe  the  slavish  submission  of  some  of  the  great- 
est men  that  our  country  has  produced  to  the  authority  and 
caprices  of  this  female  sovereign  ;  they  manner  in  which  they 
became  her  knights,  rather  than  her  statesmen  ;  and  the  sort  of 
scuffle  which  the  court  exhibited,  between  men  of  the  first  ca- 
pacities and  highest  qualities,  for  mere  patronage  and  power, 
rather  than  for  any  worthier  objects  connected  with  the  civil  and 
religious  liberties  of  their  country  and  of  mankind.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  and  in  opposition  to  the  views  of  Hume,  it  must 
be  remarked,  that  from  the  nature  of  Elizabeth's  pretensions 
and  claims,  such  as  I  have  just  alluded  to,  it  certainly  did  hap- 
pen, that  the  members  of  the  Commons  did  often  offend  her 
by  their  words,  and  were  sometimes  brought  into  direct  col- 
lision with  her  supposed  authority,  by  the  measures  they  pro- 
posed ;  that  a  real  struggle  ensued,  and  that  Elizabeth,  with 
becoming  wisdom,  generally  gave  way. 

On  the  whole,  all  the  particulars  that  make  up  the  constitu- 
tional history  of  this  reign,  cannot,  in  a  lecture  like  this,  be 
even  alluded  to  ;  nor  is  it  possible  than  any  one  can  acquire  by 
any  other  means  than  the  perusal  of  the  history,  that  general 
impression  which  the  whole  conveys. 


348  LECTURE  XIV. 

I  have,  therefore,  no  expedient  left,  but  to  endeavour  to  give 
some  specimen  of  the  whole  subject,  and  this  I  will,  therefore, 
now  attempt  to  do. 

I  select  for  that  purpose,  the  speech  and  the  examination  of 
Peter  Wentworth  (there  were  two  of  them),  and  the  more  so, 
because  you  would  not,  unless  you  read  the  parliamentary  pro- 
ceedings, sufficiently  notice  these  singular  transactions.  Peter 
Wentworth  was  a  Puritan  ;  this  is  another  reason  why  I  should 
draw  your  attention  to  them.  You  should  learn  to  understand 
the  character  of  the  Puritan  as  soon  as  possible  ;  you  must 
never  lose  sight  of  it  while  reading  this  particular  portion  of  our 
history. 

Wentworth  was  one  of  the  most  intrepid  and  able  assertors 
of  the  privileges  of  the  house,  and  being,  as  I  have  just  said,  a 
Puritan,  he  was  irresistibly  hurried  forward,  not  only  by  a  regard 
for  the  liberties  of  the  subject,  but  by  religious  zeal. 

Here,  therefore,  in  Wentworth,  we  have  immediately  pre- 
sented to  us  a  forerunner  of  the  Hampdens  and  Pyms,  and  in 
Elizabeth  of  Charles,  the  great  actors  that  are  to  appear  in  the 
ensuing  scenes ;  and  there  is  little  or  no  difference  in  the  con- 
stitutional points  at  issue.  Observe  then  what  passed. 

Elizabeth,  after  stopping  and  controlling  the  debates  and  ju- 
risdiction of  the  house  on  different  occasions,  at  last  commis- 
sioned the  speaker  to  declare,  in  consequence  of  a  bill  relating 
to  rites  and  ceremonies  in  the  church,  having  been  read  three 
times,  that  it  was  the  queen's  pleasure,  "  that  from  henceforth, 
no  bills  concerning  religion  should  be  preferred,  or  received 
into  that  house,  unless  the  same  should  be  first  considered  and 
approved  of  by  the  clergy. 

Wentworth,  and  indeed  other  members,  had  on  former  occa- 
sions not  been  wanting  to  the  duty  which  they  owed  their 
country  ;  but  this  interference  of  the  queen  produced  from 
him,  some  time  afterwards,  a  speech  which  has  not  been 
overlooked  by  Hume,  and  is  in  every  respect  memorable. 
Far  from  acquiescing  in  the  ideas  which  Elizabeth  had  formed 
of  the  prerogative  of  the  prince,  and  of  the  duties  and  privi- 
leges of  the  parliament,  expressions  like  the  following  are  to 
be  found  in  his  harangue.  You  will  observe  the  mixture  of 
religious  and  patriotic  feelings.  u  We  are  assembled  to  make, 
or  abrogate,  such  laws  as  may  be  the  chiefest  surety,  safe 


ELIZABETH.  349 

keeping,  and  enrichment  of  this  noble  realm  of  England.  I  do 
think  it  expedient  to  open  the  commodities  (advantages)  that 
grow  to  the  prince  and  the  whole  state,  by  free  speech  used  in 
this  place." 

This  he  proceeded  to  do  on  seven  different  grounds  ;  and  he 
concluded,  "  That  in  this  house,  which  is  termed  a  place  of 
free  speech,  there  is  nothing  so  necessary  for  the  preservation 
of  the  prince  and  state,  as  free  speech  ;  and  without  this,  it  is 
a  scorn  and  mockery  to  call  it  a  parliament  house,  for,  in 
truth,  it  is  none,  but  a  very  school  of  flattery  and  dissimula- 
tion, and  so  fit  a  place  to  serve  the  devil  and  his  angels  in, 
and  not  to  glorify  God  and  to  benefit  the  commonwealth." 
And  again  :  "  So  that  to  avoid  everlasting  death,  and  con- 
demnation with  the  high  and  mighty  God,  we  ought  to  pro- 
ceed in  every  cause  according  to  the  matter,  and  not  according 
to  the  prince's  mind.  The  king  ought  not  to  be  under  man, 
but  under  God  and  under  the  law,  because  the  law  maketh 
him  a  king  ;  let  the  king  therefore  attribute  that  to  the  law 
which  the  law  attributeth  to  him  ;  that  is,  dominion  and  pow- 
er :  for  he  is  not  a  king  whom  will,  and  not  the  law,  doth 
rule,  and  therefore  he  ought  to  be  under  the  law."  And 
again  :  u  We  received  a  message,  that  we  should  not  deal 
with  matters  in  religion,  but  first  to  receive  them  from  the 
bishops.  Surely  this  was  a  doleful  message  :  it  was  as  much 
as  to  say,  4  Sirs,  ye  shall  not  deal  in  God's  causes  ;  no,  ye 
shall  in  no  wise  seek  to  advance  his  glory.  We  are  incorpo- 
rated into  this  place  to  serve  God  and  all  England,  and  not 
to  be  time-servers,  as  humor-feeders,  as  cancers  that  would 
pierce  the  bone,  or  as  flatterers  that  would  fain  beguile  all  the 
world,  and  so  worthy  to  be  condemned  both  of  God  and  man. 
God  grant  that  we  may  sharply  and  boldly  reprove  God's 
enemies,  our  princes  and  state  ;  and  so  shall  every  one  of  us 
discharge  our  duties  in  this  our  high  office,  wherein  he  hath 
placed  us,  and  show  ourselves  haters  of  evil,  and  cleavers  to 
that  which  is  good,  to  the  setting  forth  of  God's  glory  and 
honor,  and  to  the  preservation  of  our  noble  queen  and  com- 
monwealth.' " 

The  speech  is  not  short,  and  he  goes  on  to  conclude  thus  : — 
"  Thus  have  I  holden  you  long  with  my  rude  speech  ;  the 
wh;ch,  since  it  tendeth  wholly,  with  pure  conscience,  to  seek 


350  LECTURE  XIV. 

the  advancement  of  God's  glory,  our  honorable  sovereign's 
safety,  and  to  the  sure  defence  of  this  noble  isle  of  England  ; 
and  all  by  maintaining  of  the  liberties  of  this  honorable  council, 
the  fountain  from  whence  all  these  do  spring  ;  my  humble  and 
hearty  suit  unto  you  all  is,  to  accept  my  good  will,  and  that 
this,  that  I  have  spoken  here  out  of  conscience  and  great  zeal 
unto  my  prince  and  state,  may  not  be  buried  in  the  pit  of  obliv- 
ion, and  so  no  good  come  thereof." 

The  house,  it  seems,  out  of  a  reverend  regard  to  her  majes- 
ty's honor,  stopped  him  before  he  had  fully  finished  ;  and  "  he 
was  sequestered  the  house  for  the  said  speech."  He  was 
afterwards  brought  from  the  sergeant's  custody  to  answer  for 
his  speech  to  a  committee  of  the  house.  All  that  passed  is 
very  curious. 

"  I  do  promise  you  all,"  said  the  intrepid  patriot,  "  if  God 
forsake  me  not,  that  I  will  never,  during  life,  hold  my  tongue, 
if  any  message  is  sent  wherein  God  is  dishonored,  the  prince 
perilled,  or  the  liberties  of  the  parliament  impeached."  And 
again  :  "  I  beseech  your  honors,  discharge  your  consciences 
herein,  and  utter  your  knowledge  simply  as  I  do  ;  for  in  truth 
her  majesty  herein  did  abuse  her  nobility  and  subjects,  and 
did  oppose  herself  against  them  by  the  way  of  advice." 

"  Surely  we  cannot  deny  it,"  replied  the  committee  ;  a  you 
speak  the  truth." 

This  speaker  of  the  truth  was,  however,  like  many  of  his 
predecessors,  sent  to  prison  for  the  "  violent  and  wicked 
words  yesterday  pronounced  by  him  touching  the  queen's 
majesty." 

This,  it  seems,  was  no  surprise  to  him.  In  his  examination 
before  the  committee,  he  had  observed,  u  I  do  assure  your 
honors,  that  twenty  times  and  more,  when  I  walked  in  my 
grounds  revolving  this  speech,  to  prepare  against  this  day, 
my  own  fearful  conceit  did  say  unto  rne,  that  this  speech 
would  carry  me  to  the  place  whither  I  shall  now  go,  and  fear 
would  have  moved  me  to  put  it  out.  Then  I  weighed  whether 
in  good  conscience  and  the  duty  of  a  faithful  subject  I  might 
keep  myself  out  of  prison,  and  not  to  warn  my  prince  from 
walking  in  a  dangerous  course.  My  conscience  said  unto 
me  that  I  could  not  be  a  faithful  subject  if  I  did  more  respect 
to  avoid  my  own  danger  than  my  prince's  danger  ;  here- 


ELIZABETH.  351 

withall  I  was  made  bold,  and  went  forward  as  your  honors 
heard  ;  yet  when  I  uttered  those  words  in  the  house,  that  there 
was  none  without  fault,  no,  not  our  noble  queen,  I  paused,  and 
beheld  all  your  countenances,  and  saw  plainly  that  those  words 
did  amaze  you  all  ;  then  fear  bade  me  to  put  out  the  words  that 
followed,  for  your  countenances  did  assure  me,  that  not  one  of 
you  would  stay  me  of  my  journey  ;  but  I  spake  it,  and  I  praise 
God  for  it." 

You  will  now  observe  the  conduct  of  Elizabeth.  In  a 
month  afterwards,  the  queen  was  pleased  to  remit  her  dis- 
pleasure, and  to  refer  the  enlargement  of  the  party  to  the 
house  ;  when  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  rose  to  ex- 
patiate, first,  on  her  majesty's  good  and  clement  nature  ;  sec- 
ondly, on  her  respect  to  the  Commons  ;  and,  thirdly,  their 
duty  towards  her.  While  he  laid  down  that  the  house  were 
not,  under  the  pretence  of  liberty,  to  forget  their  duty  to  so 
gracious  a  queen,  he  failed  not  to  add,  that  true  it  is,  nothing 
can  be  well  concluded  in  a  council  where  there  is  not  allowed 
in  debating  of  causes  brought  in,  deliberation,  liberty,  and 
freedom  of  speech ;  and  the  whole  tone  of  his  harangue, 
which  appears,  even  now,  moderate  and  reasonable,  being 
pronounced,  as  it  was  by  a  minister  of  the  crown,  in  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  and  in  a  set  speech  made  for  the  occasion,  must 
be  considered,  though  the  minister  was  more  of  a  patriot  than 
the  rest,  as  indicating  that  the  house  really  felt  that  Wentworth 
had  been  guilty  rather  in  form  than  in  substance,  and  had  not 
offended  against  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  though  the  vigor 
and  ability  of  Elizabeth's  administration,  and  her  jealousy  of 
her  prerogative,  made  it  a  task  of  difficulty,  and  even  of  per- 
sonal danger,  openly  to  resist  her  political  maxims  or  disregard 
her  menaces. 

The  few  particulars  that  I  have  thus  mentioned  will  I  hope 
serve  my  purpose,  that  of  giving  you  some  general  notion,  not 
only  of  this  remarkable  transaction,  but  of  the  whole  subject, 
that  is  so  long  to  occupy  your  attention. 

Eleven  years  afterwards  the  same  patriot  and  Puritan,  on 
a  similar  occasion,  handed  forward  to  the  speaker  a  few  articles 
by  way  of  queries,  among  which  we  find  one  couched  in  the 
following  words  :  —  Whether  there  be  any  council  which  can 
make,  add  to,  or  diminish  from,  the  laws  of  this  realm,  but 


352  LECTURE  XIV. 

only  this  council  of  parliament  ?  "  — a  query  which  Wentworth 
conceived  could  only  be  answered  in  the  negative  (that  there 
was  no  council  but  parliament)  ;  and  which,  if  so  answered, 
would  at  once  put  an  end  to  all  the  maxims  and  pretences  of 
arbitrary  power. 

It  was  for  another  century  so  to  answer  this  important 
query,  and  not  before  a  dreadful  appeal  had  been  made  by 
the  commons  and  the  crown  to  the  uncertain  decision  of 
arms. 

Not  a  session  took  place  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  which 
does  not  present  some  speech,  or  motion,  or  debate,  charac- 
teristic of  the  times,  and  of  the  undefined  nature  of  the  con- 
stitution ;  and  we  have  repeated  specimens  of  the  same  sort 
of  constitutional  questions,  the  same  sort  of  state  difficulties, 
that  took  place  in  the  subsequent  reigns  of  James  and 
Charles. 

But  there  is  this  important  difference  invariably  to  be  ob- 
served :  Elizabeth  could  always  give  way  in  time  to  render 
her  concessions  a  favor.  Unlike  other  arbitrary  princes,  and 
unlike  chiefly  in  this  particular,  she  did  not  think  it  a  mark 
of  political  wisdom  always  to  persevere  when  her  authority 
was  resisted.  She  did  not  suppose  that  her  subjects,  if  she 
yielded  to  their  petitions  or  complaints,  would  necessarily 
conclude  that  she  did  so  from  fear  ;  she  did  not  conclude,  that 
if  she  became  more  reasonable,  they  must  necessarily  become 
less  so. 

With  as  high  notions  of  her  prerogative  as  any  sovereign 
that  can  be  mentioned,  in  her  own  nature  most  haughty  and 
most  imperious,  she  had  still  the  good  sense  not  only  to  per- 
ceive, but  to  act  as  if  she  perceived,  that  it  was  her  interest  to 
be  beloved  as  well  as  respected  ;  and  her  reign,  if  examined, 
shows  a  constant  assertion  and  production  of  the  powers  of  the 
prerogative,  but  still  the  most  prudent  management  of  it,  and 
the  most  careful  attention  to  public  opinion.  This  last  is  a 
great  merit  in  all  sovereigns  and  their  ministers,  and  indeed 
somewhat  necessary  to  the  virtue  of  all  men,  in  private  life  as 
well  as  public. 

Now  the  question  is,  successful  and  able  as  she  was,  what 
was  it  that  imposed  any  restraint  upon  her  disposition  ?  Why 
did  she  so  respect  and  abstain  from  the  privileges  which  she 


ELIZABETH.  353 

might  or  might  not  think  belonged  to  the  commons  ?  Why  did 
she  temper  the  exercise  of  what  she  judged  her  own  preroga- 
tive, make  occasional  concessions,  and,  after  all,  not  be  that 
arbitrary  sovereign  which,  according  to  Hume,  the  constitution 
rendered  her  ?  There  seems  no  answer  but  one  ;  that  such 
was  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  (whatever  might  be  its  letter,) 
such  was  the  effect  it  produced  on  the  minds  of  her  people, 
and  of  her  houses  of  legislature,  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  not 
prudent,  it  would  not  have  been  thought  sufficiently  legal,  for 
her  to  be  often  or  systematically  that  absolute  sovereign  which 
the  historian  supposes  her  to  be.  The  conclusion,  therefore, 
is,  that  the  constitution  was  not,  in  fact,  what  he  imagines. 
There  is  certainly  some  confusion  in  Hume  ;  he  does  not  dis- 
tinguish between  the  constitution  as  originally  understood  be- 
fore Henry  the  Seventh,  and  the  constitution  as  it  afterwards 
obtained  in  practice  under  the  Tudors.  Add  to  this,  that  it  is 
in  vain  to  look  entirely  at  statutes  and  at  courts,  whether  equi- 
table or  oppressive.  The  general  spirit  of  the  whole,  the 
notions  of  it  that  are  inherited  and  transmitted,  the  effect  pro- 
duced on  the  opinions  and  temperament  of  the  public  and  of 
the  rulers  themselves  ;  these  are  the  great  objects  to  be  consid- 
ered when  we  speak  of  a  constitution. 

It  is  but  too  obvious  to  remark  the  superiority  of  Elizabeth 
over  her  successors,  particularly  the  unhappy  Charles,  in  one 
most  important  requisite,  the  art  of  discovering  the  state  of 
the  public  mind,  the  art  of  appreciating  well  the  nature  of  the 
times  in  which  she  lived. 

The  fact  seems  to  have  been,  that  the  great  merit,  the  sole 
merit  of  this  renowned  queen  was  this  ;  with  great  faults,  bad 
passions,  and  most  female  weaknesses,  she  had  still  the  spirit 
and  the  sense  so  to  control  her  own  nature,  that,  with  the 
exception  of  her  appointment  of  Leicester  to  charges  the  most 
critical,  she  never,  like  other  sovereigns  of  similar  faults,  neg- 
lected the  interests  of  her  kingdom,  or  by  the  indulgence  of 
her  own  failings  brought  calamities  on  her  subjects.  This  is 
an  honorable  distinction.  If  princes  and  ministers,  in  their 
real  disposition  as  reprehensible  and  odious  as  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, would  in  practice  become  rulers  as  prudent  and  patriotic, 
the  affairs  of  mankind  would  present  a  very  different  and  far 
more  pleasing  appearance. 

VOL.  i.  45 


354  LECTURE  XIV. 

There  is  a  dialogue  by  Dr.  Hurd  on  the  Times  and  person- 
al Qualities  of  Elizabeth,  which  is  not  long,  and  well  worth 
reading,  where  her  character  is  very  severely  criticized,  and 
feebly  defended. 

Camden's  Life  of  Queen  Elizabeth  may  be  consulted  for 
minute  particulars  respecting  the  distinguished  families  and 
statesmen  of  those  days,  and  for  facts.  The  history  is  drawn 
up  in  the  form  of  annals  ;  the  style  clear  and  unaffected  ;  but 
there  are  no  philosophic  views  ;  no  comments  on  the  civil  and 
religious  liberties  of  the  country  ;  little  said  of  the  Puritans  or 
of  the  penal  statutes  against  the  Papists  ;  the  conduct  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  not  properly  criticized,  and  the  whole  what  one  might 
expect  from  an  honest,  diligent  man,  whose  patron  was  Cecil, 
and  who  wrote  during  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  at  a  time 
when  history  had  not  assumed  her  modern  character  of  philoso- 
phy, teaching  by  examples.  This  Camden  is  the  celebrated 
antiquary  ;  and  from  the  Biographia  Britannica  of  Kippis  it 
appears  that  great  pains  were  taken  with  this  work,  and  that  it 
was  much  admired  in  its  day.  Camden  had  access  to  all  the 
state  papers  of  Lord  Burleigh  and  of  the  public  offices.  The 
publications  of  Birch  may  be  consulted  ;  u  Birch  the  indefati- 
gable," as  he  was  called  by  Gray. 

The  Journals  of  the  Parliaments  (folio  edition,  1682),  by 
Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes,  is  a  work  of  authority  connected  with 
the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  preface  is  worth  reading  ; 
it  is  animating,  it  is  edifying,  to  see  the  piety  and  industry  of 
these  venerable  men  of  former  times.  "  Yet  I  have  already," 
says  he,  "  entered  upon  other  and  greater  labors,  conceiving 

myself  not  to  be  born  for  myself  alone These  I 

have  proposed  to  myself  to  labor  in, like  him  that 

shoots  at  the  sun,  not  in  hopes  to  reach  it,  but  to  shoot  as 
high  as  possibly  his  strength,  art,  or  skill  will  permit.     .     .     . 

.     Yet,  if  I  can  but  finish  a  little, it  may 

hereafter  stir  up  some  able  judgments   to  add  an  end   to  the 

whole, I  shall  always  pray,  &c.,  that  by  all  rny 

endeavours,  God  may  be  glorified,  the  truth,  divine  or  human, 
vindicated,  and  the  public  benefited. 

'Sic  mihi  contingat  vivere,  sicque  mori.'" 
Most  of  what  is  to  be  found  in  Sir  Simonds  may  be  seen  in 


ELIZABETH.  355 

the  Parliamentary  History,  as  published  by  Cobbett,  with 
valuable  additions  from  Strype. 

From  these  debates  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  man- 
ners of  the  times,  and  of  the  minds  of  the  great  men  that 
appeared  in  them  ;  some  idea,  too,  of  the  constitution. 

Serjeant  Hyle  said,  "  I  marvel  much  that  the  house  will 

stand  upon  granting  of  a  subsidy, when  all  we  have 

is  her  Majesty's  ;  " u  at  which  all  the  house 

hemmed,  laughed,  and  talked."  —  Page  633. 

"  He  that  will  go  about  to  debate  her  Majesty's  preroga- 
tive," said  Dr.  Burnet,  "  had  need  walk  warily."  —  Page  645. 
See,  too,  Secretary  Cecil's  speech,  page  649.  But  the  queen, 
after  all,  gave  up  the  monopolies  complained  of. 

Sir  Edward  Coke  speaks  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  anti- 
quity of  the  commons,  page  515.  "  At  the  first  we  were  all 
one  house,  and  sat  together  by  a  precedent  which  I  have  of  a 
parliament  holden  before  the  Conquest,  by  Edward,  the  son 
of  Etheldred  ;  " "  but  the  commons  sitting  in  pres- 
ence of  the  king,  and  amongst  the  nobles,  disliked  it," 

u  and  the  house  was  divided,  and  came  to  sit  asunder." 

The  facts  do  not  seem  to  agree  with  this  representation, 
our  present  House  of  Commons  not  being  the  same  as  the 
u  communitas  "  of  the  ancient  parliament  ;  and  again,  to  the 
same  effect  Sir  Edward  Coke  speaks,  in  another  place. 

The  chief  points  of  interest  in  these  debates  are  the  speeches 
and  queries  of  Peter  Wentworth  for  freedom  of  speech,  &c. 
Discussions  on  the  privileges  of  the  commons  in  case  of 
arrests,  &c.,  and  on  monopolies,  when  the  queen's  prerogative 
came  into  question. 

In  Sir  Simonds'  Reports  the  Puritans  and  the  penal  laws 
against  Papists,  &c.  do  not  make  the  appearance  that  might 
be  expected.  The  notions  then  entertained  on  the  subjects  of 
political  economy  appear  particularly  in  the  speeches  of  Sir 
Francis  Bacon  ;  and  from  the  mistakes  of  such  a  man,  and 
such  men  as  were  then  around  him,  may  be  estimated  the 
merits  of  Adam  Smith,  and  the  progress  of  improvement  in 
the  course  of  a  century  and  a  half. 

The  forms  of  parliamentary  proceedings  and  ceremonies 
may  be  studied  in  this  work  of  Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes. 


356  LECTURE  XIV. 

JAMES  THE  FIRST. 

The  same  interest  which  belongs  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
belongs  still  more  to  the  parliamentary  proceedings  in  the  reign 
of  James  the  First. 

The  commons  and  the  sovereign  seem  of  like  disposition 
with  their  predecessors  ;  but  the  former  far  more  advanced  in 
wisdom,  and  the  latter  in  folly. 

The  great  contest  between  prerogative  and  freedom  may  be 
seen  still  ripening  into  fatal  maturity  ;  and  the  parties  and 
maxims  which  so  distinguished  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First 
are  clearly  visible. 

The  proceedings  in  parliament,  and  the  speeches  of  the 
king,  are  most  of  them  marked  by  expressions  and  reasonings, 
the  perusal  of  which  can  alone  convey  an  adequate  picture  of 
the  times,  and  of  the  revolution  which  was  approaching. 

Many  of  them  are  very  remarkable  ;  one  document,  more 
particularly,  entitled,  An  Apology  of  the  House  of  Commons 
made  to  the  King,  touching  their  Privileges.  It  was  presented 
to  the  house  by  one  of  their  committees.  It  is  not  easy  to 
see  how  the  cause  of  the  people  of  England  could  be  stated 
more  reasonably  or  more  ably.  It  is  supposed  to  be  written 
by  the  great  Bacon,  and  is  so  excellent  as  to  seem  quite  supe- 
rior to  the  age  to  which  it  belongs,  and  almost  to  induce  a 
doubt  of  its  authenticity.  Its  authenticity,  however,  seems 
on  the  whole  not  to  be  controverted.  You  will  see  it  in  Cob- 
bett,  and  alluded  to  in  Hume's  Notes. 

The  king  appears  to  have  formed  one  idea  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  the  commons  another.  Before  the  end  of  his  reign 
he  was  brought  to  express  himself  in  a  manner  somewhat  more 
agreeable  to  the  general  spirit  of  the  laws  and  customs  of  the 
realm,  yet  his  reign  was  marked  by  a  continual  state  of  war- 
fare, and  an  open  rupture  was  at  last  the  result. 

Understanding  that  a  protestation  had  been  drawn  up  by 
the  house  on  the  subject  of  their  privileges,  he  sent  for  their 
journal-book,  and  tore  it  out  with  his  own  hand. 

This  protestation  had  affirmed  that  the  liberties,  franchises, 
privileges,  and  jurisdiction  of  parliament  are  the  ancient  and 
undoubted  birthright  and  inheritance  of  the  subjects  of  Eng- 
land ;  had  asserted  the  competence  of  parliament  to  con- 


JAMES  THE  FIRST.  357 

sider  such  affairs  as  the  king  thought  exclusively  the  objects  of 
what,  in  the  pride  of  his  folly,  he  called  his  state-craft ;  had 
laid  down  the  freedom  of  speech,  the  immunity  from  arrest, 
the  illegality  of  the  king's  giving  credence  (as  it  was  called) 
with  respect  to  the  conduct  of  the  members. 

Such  were  the  reasonable  positions  which  the  king  resisted, 
and  with  such  violence.  The  leading  members  of  the  commons 
were  at  that  time  such  men  as  Sir  Edward  Coke  and  Mr.  Sel- 
den.  James  seems  not  to  have  been  a  sovereign  determined 
in  his  character  like  Elizabeth,  or  brutal  in  his  disposition  like 
Henry  the  Eighth,  but  he  was  in  theory  always,  and  in  prac- 
tice sometimes,  a  despot  ;  and  the  tendency  of  all  his  exer- 
tions was  to  render  his  successors  so.  The  people  of  England 
have,  therefore,  an  eternal  obligation  to  the  great  and  virtuous 
men  who  opposed  his  pretensions. 

There  is,  however,  one  circumstance  which  took  place  in  his 
reign,  not  noticed  by  Millar,  which,  as  far  as  it  can  now  be  un- 
derstood, seems  favorable  to  the  good  intentions  of  this  mon- 
arch, but  at  the  same  time  strongly  indicates  how  little  the 
actors  in  a  scene  can  appreciate  their  own  situation. 

I  will  state  shortly  the  circumstances,  which  do  not,  I 
think,  appear  to  have  been  sufficiently  noticed  by  our  histo- 
rians. 

On  the  decline  of  the  feudal  system,  the  king  was  left  to 
depend  for  the  support  of  his  own  state,  and  even  for  the 
expenses  of  foreign  war, — first,  on  the  claims  of  his  feudal 
rights,  and  on  the  exercise  of  his  prerogative  ;  and,  secondly, 
on  the  supplies  of  parliament.  These  feudal  claims  and  exer- 
cises of  the  prerogative  were  daily  becoming,  from  the  changes 
that  had  taken  place  in  the  world,  less  valuable  to  the  crown, 
and  yet  more  injurious  and  offensive  to  the  subject. 

But  if  these  were  entirely  to  be  withdrawn,  the  sovereign 
was  then  to  be  left  totally  dependent  on  the  favor  of  the  com- 
mons. It  was  neither  in  itself  just,  nor  in  any  respect  agreea- 
ble to  the  best  interests  of  the  people,  that  the  sovereign  should 
be  thus  deprived  of  all  proper  funds  for  the  maintenance  of 
his  personal  dignity  and  constitutional  importance.  The  only 
expedient  for  avoiding  all  the  evils  that  might  ensue,  was,  that 
the  king  should  give  up  the  feudal  rights  and  prerogatives  which 
his  predecessors  had  exercised  ;  and  the  commons,  in  return, 


358  LECTURE   XIV. 

secure  him  an  adequate  revenue,  a  revenue  which  might  be  col- 
lected from  the  subject  with  less  injury  to  their  civil  freedom 
and  growing  prosperity. 

In  a  few  years  after  the  king's  accession,  a  scheme  of  this 
sort  was  actually  in  agitation. 

The  Lords  meditated,  as  usual,  between  the  king  and  com- 
mons. Even  the  terms  of  the  bargain,  or  what  was  then  very 
properly  called,  of  the  great  contract,  were  all  adjusted. 

The  parliament  was  prorogued  in  the  summer  to  October  ; 
and  all  that  remained  was,  that  they  should  state  the  manner  in 
which  the  sum  agreed  upon  (two  hundred  thousand  pounds  per 
annum),  was  to  be  secured.  But  though  the  conferences  and 
committees  were  resumed,  no  effectual  progress  was  made,  and 
the  parliament  was  dissolved  in  December, — nothing  done. 
This  great  chance  for  avoiding  all  the  evils  that  were  impending 
was  thus  lost  for  ever.  We  in  vain  inquire,  by  whose  fault,  by 
what  unhappy  train  of  circumstances,  this  golden  opportunity 
was  lost. 

The  journals  of  the  commons  are  here  wanting  ;  the  journals 
of  the  lords  give  little  or  no  information,  nor  do  the  contempo- 
rary historians  assist  us.  The  king  in  his  proclamation,  after 
alluding  to  the  affair,  says  only,  "  that  for  many  good  consid- 
erations known  to  himself,  he  had  now  determined  to  dissolve 
the  parliament."  When  he  called  a  new  one,  four  years  after- 
wards, he  only  observes  in  his  speech,  that  u  he  will  deal  no 
more  with  them  like  a  merchant,  by  way  of  exchange,"  that 
u  he  shall  expect  loving  contribution  for  loving  retribution  ;  " 
"  that  to  come  to  account  with  them  how  and  what,  was  too 
base  for  his  quality."  In  another  speech  he  alludes  to  some 
who  had  done  ill  offices  between  him  and  his  commons.  The 
probability  seems,  that  the  higgling  manner  of  the  commons  had 
naturally  disgusted  the  king  ;  and  that  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds  per  annum  was  a  sum  larger,  at  that  time,  than  they  on 
their  part  durst  commit  to  the  exclusive  disposal  of  the  crown  ; 
and  this  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  a  few  words  which  I  ob- 
served in  a  passage  of  one  of  Sir  John  Eliot's  speeches,  made 
some  time  after. 

In  a  few  months,  this  new  parliament  was  likewise  dis- 
solved, and  in  great  ill-humor  ;  yet  nothing  occurs  in  the 
speeches  of  the  members,  or  elsewhere,  with  the  casual  ex- 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  359 

ception  just  mentioned  in  Sir  John  Eliot's  hint,  that  throws 
any  light  on  this  important  transaction.  Neither  the  leaders, 
therefore,  of  the  commons,  with  all  their  real  ability,  nor  the 
king,  with  all  his  "  state-craft,"  nor  the  historians  at  the 
time,  much  less  the  people,  appear  to  have  seen  the  crisis 
in  which  the  realm  was  already  placed,  or  that  the  best, 
perhaps  only,  system  had  been  struck  upon,  and  yet  aban- 
doned, for  saving  alike  the  people  and  the  monarch  from  the 
dangers  to  which  they  were  exposed.  These  dangers  were 
now  inevitable.  The  commons  had  publicly  stated  the  max- 
ims of  their  conduct, — the  principles,  as  they  conceived,  of 
the  constitution.  The  king  had  indignantly  torn  them  from 
their  journals,  as  inconsistent  with  his  rights  and  the  honor  of 
his  crown.  The  great  question  of  prerogative  on  the  one 
side,  and  of  privilege  on  the  other,  was  therefore  at  issue  ;  and 
it  would  have  required  far  other  abilities  and  virtues  than  those 
which  his  successor  Charles  possessed,  to  have  been  a  guar- 
dian minister  of  good  to  his  unhappy  country,  in  a  situation  so 
little  understood,  and,  however  understood,  so  encompassed 
with  difficulties. 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 

Making  every  allowance  for  the  imperfection  of  human 
judgment,  making  every  allowance  for  the  impossibility  which 
seems  always  to  exist  either  for  king  or  people  properly  to 
comprehend  their  situation,  when  these  dreadful  revolutions 
are  approaching,  still  the  conduct  of  Charles  appears  totally 
infatuated. 

Admit  that  he  entertained  the  same  notions  of  the  royal 
prerogative  which  his  father  had  done,  that  he  thought  himself 
bound  in  honor  to  defend  it,  was  it  not  clear  that  he  must  then 
adopt  a  system  of  economy,  and  avoid  expense  at  home  and 
wars  abroad  ? 

If  his  parliaments  differed  with  him  about  his  rights,  could 
he  on  any  other  system  do  without  them  ?  Admit,  again,  that 
he  lived  in  a  religious  age,  when  Papist  and  Protestant,  when 
Roman  Catholic,  Lutheran,  and  Calvinist,  gave  each  of  them 
the  most  unreasonable  importance,  as  they  are  always  disposed 


360  LECTURE  XIV. 

to  do,  to  their  own  particular  doctrines  and  ceremonies,  had 
not  the  nature  of  the  religious  principle  sufficiently  display- 
ed itself?  Had  not  the  transactions  in  Germany,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Reformation,  been  a  subject  of  the  most 
recent  history  ?  Had  not  the  efforts  which  the  Calvinists  made 
in  France,  had  not  the  wars  in  the  Low  Countries,  had  not 
the  success  of  the  Hollanders,  been  exhibited  immediately 
before  his  eyes  ?  Could  he  draw  no  lesson  for  his  own  con- 
duct from  instances  like  these  ?  Could  all  that  he  had  even 
then  witnessed  in  what  is  now  called  the  thirty  years'  war  in 
Germany  produce  no  effect  upon  his  understanding  ;  and,  as 
if  the  ability  and  spirit  of  his  English  parliaments  were  not 
sufficient  for  his  embarrassment,  was  he  still  further  to  increase 
his  difficulties,  was  he  to  go  on  and  summon  to  his  destruction 
all  the  furies  of  rage  and  fanaticism  from  Scotland  ?  The  wis- 
est monarch,  in  the  situation  of  Charles,  might,  no  doubt,  have 
failed  ;  but  it  seems  scarcely  possible  for  his  worst  enemy  to 
have  advised  more  obvious  and  fatal  mistakes  than  those, 
which,  with  all  our  compassion  for  his  fate,  we  must  allow 
that  he  committed. 

With  this  period  of  our  history  we  are  certainly  called  upon 
to  take  more  than  ordinary  pains.  It  has  been  highly  labor- 
ed by  Hume  ;  it  has  been  considered,  in  his  own  manly  and 
decisive  manner,  by  Millar  ;  it  has  been  detailed  by  the  vir- 
tuous Clarendon  ;  a  sort  of  journal  of  it  has  been  made  by 
Whitelocke  ;  what  a  plain  and  gallant  soldier  thought,  may 
be  seen  in  Ludlow  ;  a  more  domestic  view  of  it,  in  the  life  of 
Colonel  Hutchinson  ;  and  the  parliamentary  proceedings  and 
public  documents  may  be  examined  in  Cobbettv  and  particu- 
larly in  Rushworth.  Much  more  than  this  may  be  found  if 
sought  for  ;  but  less  than  this  can  scarcely  be  sufficient  for  any 
one  who  would  understand  the  history  of  the  constitution  of 
England. 

There  is  a  History  of  the  Long  Parliament  by  May  ;  a 
History  of  the  Independents  by  the  Presbyterian  Walker  ;  pa- 
pers collected  by  Nalson,  who  professes  to  correct  Rushworth  ; 
and  different  memoirs,  such  as  the  Memoirs  of  Hollis,  and 
Sir  P.  Warwick. 

Since  I  drew  up  these  lectures,  the  whole  subject  has  been 
considered  by  Mr.  Brodie,  a  searcher  into  original  records 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  361 

and  a  corrector  of  Hume.  Mr.  Godwin  has  published  a  work 
which  must  be  considered  as  the  defence  of  the  Republican 
party.  Miss  Aikin  has  lately  furnished  us  important  Memoirs, 
which  become  in  the  course  of  the  detail  by  far  the  best  ex- 
planation and  excuse  for  the  conduct  of  the  popular  leaders, 
and  more  particularly  the  long  parliament,  that  has  as  yet  ap- 
peared, and  on  all  and  on  every  occasion,  and  on  all  the  critical 
points  of  this  memorable  contest,  Hallam  will  be  found  totally 
invaluable. 

But  we  must,  in  the  first  place,  attend  to  the  philosophical 
reflections  and  statements  of  Hume  and  Millar.  Their  account 
of  the  situation  of  the  different  orders  of  the  state,  and  of  the 
various  religious  sects,  the  views  and  interests  of  each,  and 
those  general  principles  of  government  which  can  apply  to  this 
interesting  period,  all  these  are  very  ably  stated  by  these  wri- 
ters. And  when  compared  with  the  documents  in  Rushworth, 
with  the  parliamentary  speeches,  and  with  the  sincere  though 
apologetical  narrative  of  Clarendon,  may  enable  every  reader 
to  draw  his  own  conclusions. 

I  must  by  no  means  forget  the  important  work  of  Rapin, 
always  unaffected  and  laborious,  a  work  which  may  readily  and 
ought  always  to  be  compared  with  Hume. 

But  having  referred  my  hearer  to  these  histories  and  docu- 
ments, I  must  leave  him  to  the  perusal  of  them  in  the  whole 
or  in  part.  They  are  too  numerous,  various,  and  interesting 
even  to  be  properly  described  ;  they  can  only  be  mentioned. 
In  like  manner  the  reflections  of  Hume  and  Millar  are  all  of 
them  far  too  valuable  to  be  presented  to  you  in  any  garbled 
manner  here,  and  indeed  are  far  too  well  expressed  to  be  pro- 
duced in  any  words  but  their  own. 

All  that  I  can  therefore  attempt  in  the  ensuing  lectures  is 
this,  to  offer  a  few  observations,  such  as  I  conceive  may  pos- 
sibly be  of  use  to  those  who  undertake  the  perusal  of  all  or 
any  of  the  books  I  have  recommended  ;  such  as  may,  perhaps, 
enable  them  to  exercise  their  own  diligence  and  their  own 
powers  of  reflection  with  the  better  effect. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  would  suggest  that  there  are  two 
leading  considerations  in  this  subject  which  should  be  always 
kept  in  view.  The  first  is  this  : —  What  was  the  effect  of 
these  transactions  on  the  constitution  ultimately,  —  en  the 

VOL.  i.  46 


362  LECTURE  XIV. 

whole  1  Secondly,  What  are  the  comparative  merits  and  de- 
ments of  the  contending  parties  ? 

The  first  consideration  must  of  course  be  suspended  till  we 
can  turn  and  look  back  from  a  very  distant  point  of  view,  such 
as  the  revolution  of  1688,  when  these  disputes  were  brought 
to  a  species  of  close. 

It  is  the  second  consideration,  the  merits  and  demerits  of 
the  contending  parties,  which  is  more  within  the  reach  of  our 
attention  at  present.  And  even  in  this  last  question,  the  first 
will  be  found  continually  implicated. 

With  respect  to  this  last  inquiry,  the  comparative  merits 
and  demerits  of  the  parties,  what  I  would  recommend,  is, 
that  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  Charles  should  be  separated  into 
different  intervals,  and  an  estimate  and  comparison  made  of  the 
conduct  of  the  parties  during  each  of  these  intervals. 

This  estimate  may  be  very  different  during  different  inter- 
vals ;  and  it  is  from  a  consideration  of  the  whole  that  a  verdict 
must  at  last  be  pronounced. 

I  shall  in  this  and  the  ensuing  lectures  endeavour  to  give 
you  a  more  distinct  idea  of  what  I  have  just  proposed,  and  I 
shall  attempt  to  do  in  a  summary  manner  what,  as  I  conceive, 
you  may  with  some  advantage  execute  hereafter  more  regu- 
larly for  yourselves,  as  you  read  the  history  and  the  proper 
documents  connected  with  it. 

The  first  period  which  I  select  as  an  interval  is  from  the 
accession  of  Charles  to  the  dissolution  of  his  third  parliament 
in  1629,  an  interval  of  four  years. 

But  before  this  interval  or  any  part  of  the  question  be  ex- 
amined, one  observation  must  be  made  ;  it  is  this,  that  in 
appreciating  the  comparative  merits  of  the  two  contending 
parties,  it  is  most  important  to  consider  what  was  their  con- 
duct at  the  commencement  of  their  differences,  and  before  the 
rupture  actually  took  place  :  that  is,  which  was  at  first  the 
offending  party.  Afterwards  it  is  too  late  for  either  of  them 
to  be  wise.  Offences  and  injuries  generate  each  other  from 
the  very  nature  of  human  infirmity  ;  the  decision  is  soon  com- 
mitted to  violence  and  force  ;  and  those  are  the  most  guilty 
who  have  been  the  original  means  of  reducing  themselves  or 
their  opponents  to  such  dreadful  extremities. 

This  being  premised,  we  are  to  examine,  in  the  next  place, 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  363 

this  short,  but,  for  the  reason  I  have  just  mentioned,  this  most 
critical  period,  this  first  interval  of  four  years. 

And  to  me  it  appears  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  how 
the  king  could  have  conducted  himself  in  a  manner  less  deserv- 
ing of  our  approbation.  Read  the  history,  and  then  consider, 
were  not  his  notions  inconsistent,  not  only  with  the  civil  liberty 
which  belongs  to  a  free  monarchy,  but  with  the  measure  of 
civil  freedom  which  at  that  time  belonged  to  the  English  mon- 
archy ?  Again,  had  his  people  any  other  hold  upon  him  but 
their  House  of  Commons  ?  Had  the  Commons  any,  but  his 
necessities  ?  Did  they,  therefore,  in  the  last  place,  push  their 
power  of  extorting  concessions  in  return  for  their  supplies  to 
any  extent  not  required  by  the  public  good,  or  rather,  to  any 
extent  not  required  by  the  constitution,  even  as  then  under- 
stood ? 

Take,  for  a  specimen  of  the  whole  subject,  the  proceedings 
on  the  famous  Petition  of  Right. 

When  we,  in  the  first  place,  read  the  history,  and  observe 
all  the  shifts  and  efforts  of  the  king  to  evade  it,  and  all  the 
anxiety  and  labor  of  the  commons  to  prepare  it ;  and  when  we 
afterwards  come  to  read  the  petition  itself,  the  first  sensation  is 
surely  that  of  extreme  surprise,  for  it  actually  appears  to  con- 
tain no  declaration  and  no  provision  that  we  should  not  have 
hoped  that  Charles,  or  any  other  English  monarch  from  the 
time  of  Magna  Charta,  would  have  assented  to  with  cheerful- 
ness. 

One  observation,  however,  is  to  be  made  ;  the  Petition  of 
Right  did  in  fact  endeavour  to  settle  or  rather  to  confirm  for 
ever  one  particular  point,  which  may  not,  at  the  first  reading  of 
the  petition,  sufficiently  occur  to  you  ;  this  point  was  the  per- 
sonal liberty  of  the  subject. 

This  petition,  and  this  particular  question  of  the  personal 
liberty  of  the  subject,  have  been  considered  at  length  and  with 
due  diligence  by  Hume,  and  his  observations  must  be  well  ex- 
amined and  weighed.  The  personal  liberty  of  the  subject,  you 
will  observe,  is  the  great  point. 

There  is  a  political  difficulty,  no  doubt,  in  the  question. 
Thus,  it  is  fit  that  every  government  should  have  a  power  of 
imprisonment,  even  without  showing  cause;  because  very  ex- 
traordinary occasions  may  arise  :  a  rebellion,  for  instance,  may 


364  LECTURE  XIV. 

be  reasonably  apprehended.  But  this  Petition  of  Right  gives 
wo  such  occasional  power,  allows  of  no  exceptions  in  any  sup- 
posed case,  but  lays  down  the  personal  freedom  of  the  subject 
in  all  situations  but  those  in  which  the  subject  has  already  be- 
come obnoxious  to  the  existing  laws.  This,  therefore,  does 
not  seem  a  proper  adjustment  of  the  great  question  of  the  per- 
sonal liberty  of  the  subject. 

It  must,  however,  be  observed,  that  it  was  on  account  of  no 
theoretical  objection  of  this  kind  that  Charles  was  resolved,  if 
possible,  not  to  assent  to  the  Petition  of  Right.  The  real  rea- 
sons of  his  opposition  were  these  ;  because  he  had  no  means 
of  raising  money  by  the  exertions  of  his  prerogative,  unless  he 
could  throw  men  into  prison  (without  snowing  cause)  if  they 
resisted  his  requisitions  ;  and  because  he  had  no  expedient  for 
controlling  the  freedom  of  speech  in  the  houses  of  parliament, 
unless  it  was,  on  the  whole,  understood,  that  the  members 
were  within  reach  of  what  he  and  the  lords  called  his  sovereign 
power. 

There  can  surely,  therefore,  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  com- 
mons had  not  made  provision  against  this  claim  of  the  crown, 
it  would  soon  have  been  totally  unsafe  and  impossible  for  any 
member  in  parliament,  or  any  subject  out  of  it,  to  have  offered 
any  legal  resistance  to  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  king  ;  and 
the  contest  must  at  length  have  terminated  entirely  against  the 
constitution. 

Charles  had  exercised  a  power  of  imprisonment  on  pretences 
and  for  purposes  totally  incompatible  with  all  liberty  ;  what  was 
left  for  the  commons  but  to  insist  upon  it,  as  a  fixed  principle, 
that  no  man  should  be  imprisoned  without  cause  shown  ? 

But  what  are  we  to  say,  when  we  find  that  this  had  been 
always  the  language  of  the  constitution,  from  Magna  Charta 
down  to  that  moment  ?  u  The  truth  is,"  says  Mr.'  Hume, 
u  that  the  great  charter  and  the  old  statutes  were  sufficiently 
clear  in  favor  of  personal  liberty.  But  as  all  kings  of  Eng- 
land had  ever,  in  cases  of  necessity  or  expediency,  been  accus- 
tomed at  intervals  to  elude  them ;  and  as  Charles,  in  a  com- 
plication of  instances,  had  lately  violated  them  ;  the  commons 
judged  it  requisite  to  enact  a  new  law,  which  might  not  be 
eluded  or  violated  by  any  interpretation,  construction,  or  con- 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  365 

trary  precedent.  Nor  was  it  sufficient,  they  thought,  that  the 
king  promised  to  return  into  the  way  of  his  predecessors.  His 
predecessors  in  all  times  had  enjoyed  too  much  discretionary 
power,  and  by  his  recent  abuse  of  it,  the  whole  world  had  rea- 
son to  see  the  necessity  of  entirely  retrenching  it."  These 
are  the  words  of  Mr.  Hume. 

But  upon  this  statement  of  Mr.  Hume,  does  not  the  conduct 
of  the  commons  appear  perfectly  constitutional  and  perfectly 
reasonable  ?  With  what  propriety  is  Mr.  Hume,  at  the  close 
of  this  subject,  to  use  the  following  expressions  :  — 

"It  may  be  affirmed,  without  any  exaggeration,  that  the 
king's  assent  to  the  Petition  of  Right  produced  such  a  change 
iu  the  government  as  was  almost  equivalent  to  a  revolution." 

How  could  this  enactment  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  this 
confirmation  of  Magna  Charta  and  the  old  statutes,  which  were 
already  so  clear  in  favor  of  personal  liberty,  how  can  this  new 
assertion  of  what  had  been  always  asserted,  this  new  assertion 
in  times  of  such  extreme  peril  to  the  constitution,  —  how  can 
this  be  represented  as  equivalent  to  a  revolution  ?  The  great 
political  difficulty  of  the  personal  liberty  of  the  subject,  which 
was  thus  decided  by  the  commons  entirely  in  favor  of  the  sub- 
ject according  to  the  ancient  laws  and  constitution  of  the  realm, 
was  not  settled  with  philosophical  accuracy  by  the  Petition 
of  Right.  To  have  expected  this  in  such  times  was  to  expect 
too  much.  Afterwards,  it  was  more  skilfully  provided  for,  as 
is  well  known,  by  making  effective  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus, 
in  the  first  place  ;  and  by  the  occasional  suspension  of  the 
writ,  in  the  second.  In  consequence  of  this  writ,  made  at  last 
available,  no  man  can  be  now  kept  in  prison  without  cause 
shown  ;  and  when  the  writ  is  to  be  suspended,  and  men  are  to 
be  kept  in  prison  without  cause  shown,  the  suspension  is  asked 
for  by  the  executive  power,  and  is  assented  to  by  the  legislative 
power  for  a  time  specified,  and  on  reasons  first  produced  and 
deemed  sufficient. 

The  general  freedom  of  the  subject  is  thus  secured,  and  the 
very  necessary  interference  of  government  in  an  arbitrary  man- 
ner occasionally  to  protect  the  community  from  the  concealed 
practices  of  foreign  or  domestic  traitors,  is  thus  admitted. 

This  is,  I  conceive,  a  very  happy  adjustment  of  one  of  the 
greatest  difficulties  that  belong  to  the  science  of  government. 


366  LECTURE  XIV. 

Observe,  however,  it  is  quite  clear,  that  from  the  moment 
the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  is  suspended,  and  the  executive 
power  can  throw  men  into  prison  without  showing  cause,  the 
government  is  at  once  changed  from  a  free  to  an  arbitrary  gov- 
ernment ;  and  that  the  liberties  of  the  country  are,  from  that 
instant,  left  to  depend  on  the  spirit  of  freedom,  and  on  the  hab- 
its of  right  thinking,  that  have  already  been  generated  by  that 
free  constitution  ;  not  only  in  the  houses  of  parliament,  the 
judges  of  the  land,  and  the  people,  but  even  in  the  execu- 
tive power  itself.  The  question,  therefore,  that  remains  is, 
whether  this  justly  celebrated  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  would 
now  have  existed  in  our  constitution,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
exertions  of  the  commons  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  and 
more  particularly  on  this  occasion  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  and 
whether,  if  it  had  not.  been  for  these  exertions,  an  order  from 
a  secretary  of  state,  and  the  Tower,  might  not  have  been  as 
common  in  England,  as  Lettres  de  Cachet  and  the  Bastile 
were  once  in  France. 

I  will  now  select  another  general  specimen  of  these  times, 
and  of  the  struggle  before  us,  —  the  question  of  tonnage  and 
poundage. 

To  me  it  appears,  I  confess,  that  the  only  point  on  which 
the  exact  propriety  of  the  conduct  of  the  commons,  during  the 
whole  of  this  period  of  the  three  first  parliaments,  may  be  at 
all  questioned,  lies  here.  I  do  not  mean  their  original  resist- 
ance to  the  crown,  in  the  question  of  tonnage  and  poundage, 
but  their  final  management  and  behaviour  at  the  close  of  this 
transaction. 

The  king  had  in  this  instance,  as  in  all  the  rest,  acted  most 
unskilfully  and  unjustifiably  ;  still  he  had  at  last  given  up  the 
right,  and  that  publicly.  But  this,  it  seems,  did  not  content 
the  commons  ;  they  proceeded  immediately  to  carry  the  right, 
thus  admitted,  into  practical  and  visible  effect.  They  insisted 
upon  granting  the  duties  for  a  year  only,  with  a  view  to  alter 
the  customary  mode  of  granting  them  ;  and  by  thus  exemplify- 
ing their  right,  to  settle  the  question  for  ever. 

Now  this  appears  ta  me  to  have  been  wrong  ;  it  was  harsh, 
offensive,  and  had  the  air  of  a  triumph  over  a  fallen  adversary  : 
it  would  have  been  better  to  have  made  allowance  for  the  king's 
situation  and  feelings  ;  to  have  been  satisfied,  for  the  present, 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  367 

with  the  king's  surrender  of  the  point  in  theory  ;  to  have  sac- 
rificed something  of  constitutional  precision,  for  the  sake  of 
an  object  so  important  as  a  sincere  accommodation  with  the 
executive  branch  of  the  legislature  ;  in  short,  to  have  indulged 
the  sovereign,  even  in  his  unreasonableness  and  mistakes,  since 
the  contest  had  evidently  turned  in  their  favor,  and  they  could 
do  it  without  hazard. 

In  all  political  struggles,  there  is  no  duty  so  seldom  practis- 
ed, and  so  necessary  to  society,  as  a  forbearance  and  magna- 
nimity of  this  nature.  The  commons  thought  otherwise,  and 
I  do  not  deny  that  their  situation  was  very  critical,  and  that 
much  may  be  urged  in  opposition  to  what  I  have  thus  suggested. 

The  second  and  next  interval  which  I  would  select,  is  from 
the  end  of  the  first  four  years  of  Charles's  reign,  from  1629  to 
1640;  a  most  remarkable  interval  of  eleven  years,  and  which 
is  extremely  important. 

Here  a  new  scene  opens  :  —  we  have  no  longer,  as  hitherto, 
the  king  calling  parliaments,  and  then  demanding  the  grant  of 
supplies,  as  the  condition  of  his  favor  ;  and  the  commons,  in 
their  turn,  requiring  the  admission  of  constitutional  claims,  as 
the  condition  of  their  subsidies.  We  have  no  longer  proroga- 
tions, dissolutions,  imprisonment  of  the  members,  and,  during 
the  intermission  of  parliament,  loans  and  benevolences  ;  but  we 
have  now  a  resolution  to  call  parliaments  no  more  ;  we  have 
what  were  before  occasional  expedients,  converted  into  a  sys- 
tem of  regular  government ;  we  have  every  effort  exerted  to 
make  the  prerogative  of  the  crown  supply  the  place  of  parlia- 
ments ;  and  this  plan  of  government  persevered  in  for  eleven 
years  together. 

Now  it  is  very  evident,  that  if  this  experiment  had  suc- 
ceeded,—  if  Charles  the  First  could  have  ruled  without  par- 
liaments, as  he  was  to  be  followed  by  such  princes  as  his  sons 
really  were,  and  must  necessarily  have  been  made,  no  differ- 
ence could  have  long  remained  between  the  English  monarchy 
and  the  French  ;  and  Charles  the  First,  though  amiable  in 
private  life,  a  man  of  virtue  and  of  religion,  would,  in  fact, 
have  been  the  destroyer  of  the  liberties  of  his  country  ;  and  in 
this  important  respect,  precisely  on  a  level  with  the  perfidious 
and  detestable  tyrant  of  France,  Louis  the  Eleventh. 

This  part  of  the  history  ought  to  be  well  observed.     The 


368  LECTURE  XIV. 

illegal  expedients,  or,  as  Mr.  Hume  calls  them,  the  irregular 
levies  of  money,  that  were  resorted  to,  and  the  cruel  sentences, 
or,  as  Mr.  Hume  denominates  them,  the  severities  of  the  star 
chamber,  and  high  commission,  may  be  gathered  even  from 
one  of  Hume's  own  chapters,  the  fifty-second,  which  you  must 
particularly  observe. 

The  Puritans  everywhere  fled,  preferring  to  the  fair  lands 
of  England,  the  savage  and  untamed  wilds  of  America,  — wilds 
where  their  persons  were  yet  free,  and  their  minds  their  own. 
Hazelrig,  Pym,  and  Cromwell,  even  Hampden,  had  embarked, 
but  were  prevented  from  proceeding  by  an  order  of  govern- 
ment. 

This  last  anecdote  has  been  shown  to  be  a  mistake  of  the 
historians  by  Miss  Aikin,  who  was  the  first  to  suspect  and 
examine  into  the  truth  of  this  statement,  with  her  usual  discern- 
ment and  diligence.  Of  course  the  conclusions  I  had  drawn 
from  a  circumstance,  so  striding  as  the  flight  of  such  leaders, 
are  now  omitted. 

But  I  shall  conclude  this  lecture,  by  endeavouring  to  present 
to  you  the  danger  to  which  the  constitution  of  this  country  was 
in  reality  exposed  from  another  point  of  view.  It  may  be 
collected,  I  conceive,  even  from  the  manner  in  which  so  in- 
telligent a  philosopher  as  Hume,  and  so  sincere  a  patriot  as 
Lord  Clarendon,  have  thought  proper  to  express  themselves 
on  this  occasion. 

The  passages  I  mean  to  quote  are  a  little  longer  than  I  could 
wish,  but  I  conceive,  that  when  fairly  stated,  they  exemplify 
so  completely  the  peculiar  perils  of  our  free  government  at 
this  particular  period  of  our  history,  that  I  do  not  venture  much 
to  abridge  them,  and  certainly  to  make  no  alterations  in  the 
expressions  or  sense. 

Mr.  Hume,  after  detailing  in  the  fifty-second  chapter  a 
series  of  incidents,  which  show  that  the  person  and  property  of 
every  man  of  spirit  in  the  country  was  at  the  mercy  of  the 
court,  begins  the  next  chapter  with  the  following  words  :  — 

u  The  grievances  under  which  the  English  labored,  when 
considered  in  themselves,  without  regard  to  the  constitution, 
scarcely  deserve  the  name  ;  nor  were  they  either  burdensome 
on  the  people's  properties,  or  anywise  shocking  to  the  natural 
humanity  of  mankind.  Even  the  imposition  of  ship-money, 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  369 

independent  of  the  consequences,  was  rather  an  advantage  to 
the  public,  by  the  judicious  use  which  the  king  made  of  the 
money  levied  by  that  expedient." 

Again:  —  "All  ecclesiastical  affairs  were  settled  by  law 
and  uninterrupted  precedent  ;  and  the  church  was  become  a 
considerable  barrier  to  the  power,  both  legal  and  illegal,  of  the 
crown.  Peace,  too,  industry,  commerce,  opulence,  nay,  even 
justice  and  lenity  of  administration  (notwithstanding  some  very 
few  exceptions)  ;  all  these  were  enjoyed  by  the  people,  and 
every  blessing  of  government,  except  liberty,  or  rather  the 
present  exercise  of  liberty  and  its  proper  security." 

Observe  now  Lord  Clarendon  ;  observe  the  facts  that  he 
first  lays  down,  and  then  the  remarks  which  he  thinks  it  neces- 
sary to  subjoin.  His  facts  are  these  : — u  Supplemental  acts 
of  state  were  made  to  supply  defects  of  law  ;  obsolete  laws 
were  revived  and  rigorously  executed  ;  the  law  of  knighthood 
was  revived,  which  was  very  grievous  ;  and  no  less  unjust 
projects  of  all  kinds  (page  67,  octavo),  many  ridiculous,  many 
scandalous,  all  very  grievous,  were  set  on  foot  :  the  old  laws 
of  the  forest  were  revived  ;  and  lastly,  for  a  spring  and  maga- 
zine that  should  have  no  bottom,  and  for  an  everlasting  supply 
for  all  occasions,  a  writ  was  framed  in  a  form  of  law,  &c.  &c., 
—  the  writ  of  ship-money."  He  tells  us,  "That  for  the 
better  support  of  these  extraordinary  ways,  and  to  protect  the 
agents  and  instruments  who  must  be  employed  in  them,  and 
to  discountenance  and  suppress  all  bold  inquirers  and  oppo- 
sers,  the  council-table  and  star-chamber  enlarged  their  juris- 
diction to  a  vast  extent,  holding  (as  Thucydides  said  of  the 
Athenians)  for  honorable  that  which  pleased,  and  for  just  that 
which  profited  ;  and,  being  the  same  persons  in  several  rooms, 
grew  both  courts  of  law  to  determine  right,  and  courts  of  rev- 
enue to  bring  money  into  the  treasury  :  the  council-table,  by 
proclamations,  enjoining  to  the  people  what  was  not  enjoined 
by  the  law,  and  prohibiting  that  which  was  not  prohibited  ; 
and  the  star-chamber  censuring  the  breach  and  disobedience 
to  those  proclamations,  by  very  great  fines  and  imprisonment ; 
so  that  any  disrespect  to  any  acts  of  state,  or  to  the  persons  of 
statesmen,  was  in  no  time  more  penal  ;  and  those  foundations 
of  right,  by  which  men  valued  their  security,  to  the  apprehen- 

VOL.  i.  47 


370  LECTURE  XIV. 

sion  of  understanding  and  wise  men,  never  more  in  danger  to 
be  destroyed." 

And  yet  at  the  close  of  his  description  of  this  most  alarming 
state  of  England,  what  are  his  observations  ?  They  are  these  : 
—  u  Now  after  all  this,  I  must  be  so  just  as  to  say,  that  dur- 
ing the  whole  time  that  these  pressures  were  exercised,  and 
these  new  and  extraordinary  ways  were  run,  this  kingdom 
enjoyed  the  greatest  calm,  and  the  fullest  measure  of  felicity, 
that  any  people,  in  any  age,  for  so  long  time  together  (i.  e. 
for  the  abovementioned  eleven  or  twelve  years)  have  been 
blessed  with,  to  the  wonder  and  envy  of  all  the  other  parts  of 
Christendom." 

Soon  after  he  adds,  having  first  given  a  more  distinct  enu- 
meration of  the  blessings  which  England  enjoyed,  these  words  : 
— cc  Lastly,  for  a  complement  of  all  these  blessings,  they 
were  enjoyed  by,  and  under,  the  protection  of  a  king  of  the 
most  harmless  disposition,  the  most  exemplary  piety,  the  great- 
est sobriety,  chastity,  and  mercy,  that  any  prince  hath  been 
endowed  with." 

Such  are  the  words  of  Lord  Clarendon.  Now  what  I  have 
to  press  upon  your  reflections  is  this  :  —  If  men  like  these,  a 
calm,  deliberating  philosopher  like  Hume  (though  favorable  to 
monarchy,  yet  certainly  not  meaning  to  be  unfavorable  to  the 
interests  of  mankind),  if  Hume,  at  the  distance  of  more  than  a 
century,  in  the  security  of  his  closet  ;  and  Clarendon,  a  lover 
of  the  constitution,  of  his  country,  a  patriotic  statesman,  while 
delivering,  as  he  rightly  conceived,  a  work  to  posterity  :  if 
such  men  could  think  that  these  were  observations  on  the 
subject,  too  reasonable  to  be  withheld  from  the  minds  of  their 
readers,  how  difficult  must  it  have  been  for  men  at  the  time, 
to  have  escaped  from  the  soothing,  the  fatal  influence  of  such 
considerations  ;  this  supposed  prosperity  of  their  country, 
this  peace,  this  order,  these  domestic  virtues  and  piety  of 
their  king,  their  safety  under  his  kind  protection  ;  how  diffi- 
cult to  have  been  generous  enough  to  think  of  those  Eng- 
lishmen who  were  to  follow  them,  rather  than  of  themselves  ; 
how  difficult  to  have  encountered  the  terrors  of  fines  and 
imprisonments,  for  the  sake  of  any  thing  so  vague,  so  ab- 
stract, so  disputed  (such  might  have  been  their  language),  as  the 
constitution  of  their  country  ;  how  difficult  to  have  resisted  all 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  371 

those  very  prudent  suggestions  with  which  sensible  men,  like 
Hume  and  Clarendon,  not  to  say,  the  minions  of  baseness  and 
servility,  could  have  so  readily  supplied  them  ;  how  difficult, 
when  all  that  was  required  of  them  was  a  little  silence,  and  the 
occasional  payment  of  a  tax  of  a  few  shillings  ! 

Yet,  if  our  ancestors  had  not  escaped  from  the  soothing,  the 
fatal  influence  of  such  considerations  ;  if  they  had  not  thought 
that  there  was  something  still  more  to  be  required  for  their 
country,  than  all  this  peace,  and  industry,  and  commerce,  this 
calm  of  felicity,  this  protection  and  repose,  under  the  most  vir- 
tuous and  merciful  of  kings  ;  if  they  had  not  resisted  with  con- 
tempt and  scorn  all  the  very  prudent  suggestions  with  which 
their  minds  might  have  been  so  easily  accommodated  ;  if  they 
had  not  been  content  to  encounter  the  terrors  of  fines  and  im- 
prisonments, the  loss  of  their  domestic  comforts,  the  prospects 
of  lingering  disease  and  death,  for  the  sake  of  their  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberties  ;  if  they  had  not  had  the  generosity  and  magna- 
nimity, the  virtue  and  the  heroism,  to  think  of  their  descend- 
ants as  well  as  themselves,  what,  it  may  surely  be  asked,  would 
have  been  now  the  situation  of  those  descendants,  and  where 
would  have  been  now  the  renowned  constitution  of  England  ? 


LECTURE    XV. 

CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  proposed  to  my  hearers,  when  they  came 
to  the  examination  of  this  most  interesting  reign  of  Charles  the 
First,  to  divide  it  into  different  intervals,  and  during  these  inter- 
vals, to  compare  the  conduct  of  the  king  and  his  parliaments, 
the  better  to  appreciate,  on  the  whole,  the  merits  and  demerits 
of  the  contending  parties. 

Disquisitions  of  this  kind  form  an  important  part  of  the  in- 
struction of  history  ;  the  great  principles  of  human  conduct 
are,  on  these  occasions,  examined  and  reflected  upon,  and  we 
are  thus  enabled  to  draw  general  conclusions.  The  language, 
for  instance,  which  I  yesterday  quoted  from  Lord  Clarendon, 
constituted,  no  doubt,  much  of  his  conversation  to  those 
around  him  at  the  time.  We  see  it  afterwards  the  language 
of  Hume  ;  it  will  be  the  language  of  a  certain  portion  of  the 
community,  and  that  by  no  means  the  least  respectable,  at  all 
times,  whenever  the  conduct  of  any  government  becomes  the 
subject  of  inquiry  and  remark.  I  therefore  draw  your  attention 
to  it  ;  but  I  observed  then,  and  I  must  repeat  now,  that  such 
sentiments  would  have  been  fatal  to  our  ancestors  and  ourselves, 
if  they  had  prevailed  in  the  time  of  Charles.  Their  tendency 
is,  more  or  less,  fatal  in  every  period  of  society,  and  when  a 
mixed  and  free  constitution  has  been  at  length  established,  and 
general  prosperity  has  been  the  natural  result,  this  turn  of  think- 
ing seems  to  be  one  of  the  last,  but  certainly  one  of  the  most 
formidable  enemies,  which  any  such  mixed  and  free  constitution 
has  to  encounter. 

After  dividing  the  reign  of  Charles  into  two  intervals,  the 
first,  of  four  years  from  his  accession,  the  next,  of  eleven  years 
immediately  succeeding,  I  mentioned  to  you,  as  a  specimen 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  373 

of  the  transactions  that  took  place,  the  Petition  of  Right  and 
the  question  of  tonnage  and  poundage.  They  gave  occasion 
to  the  quotations  I  recommended  to  your  attention  from  Clar- 
endon and  Hume. 

It  is  to  this  second  interval  that  belongs  the  celebrated 
question  of  ship-money.  The  very  name  of  Hampden  will 
recall  it  to  your  mind.  Observe  the  instruction  which  is  to 
be  derived  from  some  of  the  circumstances  that  took  place  ; 
observe  the  manner  in  which  the  great  leaders  of  the  popular 
party  could  be  brought  over  to  the  court  ;  how  even  a  man, 
so  able  and  so  severe,  as  the  celebrated  Noy,  the  attorney- 
genera^,  could  be  so  misled,  or  so  flattered,  as  to  become,  in 
fact,  the  author  of  the  writ  for  ship-money  ;  how  the  judges 
themselves  could  be  tampered  with  ; ,  how  an  opinion  which 
they  pronounced  theoretically,  and  in  the  abstract,  could  be 
abused  in  practice,  and  turned  to  the  most  illegal  purposes  ; 
how  an  exercise  of  the  prerogative  (confined  and  bounded  in 
its  original  application)  could  be  extended  indefinitely,  and 
converted  into  a  regular  mode  of  legislation,  which  it  was  no 
longer  necessary  in  the  court  to  justify,  nor  allowable  for  the 
subject  to  question  ;  when  remarks  like  these  have  been  made, 
we  may  surely  see,  but  too  plainly,  how  many  are  the  dangers 
to  which  all  civil  liberty  must  be  for  ever  exposed  ;  how  pre- 
carious, as  well  as  precious,  is  the  blessing.  Let  us  honor,  as 
we  ought,  the  constitution  of  England,  but  let  us  consider,  as 
we  ought,  how,  and  from  whom,  we  have  received  it,  and  we 
may  then  learn  to  pronounce,  with  gratitude  and  reverence,  the 
name  of  Hampden. 

Such,  indeed,  have  been  the  sentiments  with  which  that 
name  has  been  always  pronounced  by  Englishmen.  The  histo^ 
rian,  Hume  himself,  seems  affected  for  one  short  moment  by 
the  common  enthusiasm,  when  he  arrives  at  this  part  of  his  nar- 
rative. 

"When  this  assertor  of  the  public  cause,"  says  he,  u  had 
resisted  the  levy  of  ship-money,  the  prejudiced,  or  prostituted 
judges,  four  excepted,  gave  sentence  in  favor  of  the  crown. 
Hampden,  however,  obtained  by  the  trial,  the  end  for  which 
he  had  so  generously  sacrificed  his  safety  and  his  quiet  ;  the  peo- 
ple were  roused  from  their  lethargy  and  became  sensible  of  the 
danger  to  which  their  liberty  was  exposed.  These  national 


374  LECTURE  XV. 

questions  were  canvassed  in  every  company,  and  the  more  they 
were  examined,  the  more  evidently  did  it  appear  to  many  that 
liberty  was  totally  subverted,  and  an  unusual  and  arbitrary  au- 
thority exercised  over  the  kingdom.  Slavish  principles,  they 
said,  concurred  with  illegal  practices  ;  ecclesiastical  tyranny 
gave  aid  to  civil  usurpations  ;  iniquitous  taxes  were  supported 
by  arbitrary  punishments  ;  and  all  the  privileges  of  the  nation, 
transmitted  through  so  many  ages,  secured  by  so  many  laws, 
and  purchased  by  the  blood  of  so  many  heroes  and  patriots, 
now  lay  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  monarch  !  What,  though 
public  peace  and  national  industry  increased  the  commerce  and 
opulence  of  the  kingdom  ?  This  advantage  was  temporary,  and 
due  alone,  not  to  any  encouragement  given  by  the  crown,  but  to 
the  spirit  of  the  English,  the  remains  of  their  ancient  freedom  ? 
What,  though  the  personal  character  of  the  king,  amidst  all  his 
misguided  counsels,  might  merit  indulgence,  or  even  praise  ? 
He  was  but  one  man  ;  and  the  privileges  of  the  people,  the  in- 
heritance of  millions,  were  too  valuable  to  be  sacrificed  to  his 
prejudices  and  mistakes." 

Here  Mr.  Hume,  as  if  conscious  what  might  be  the  influence 
of  the  eloquent  reasonings  and  just  statements  which  he  was  ex- 
hibiting, stops  short,  —  it  was  certainly  high  time  ;  and,  as  if 
unwilling  that  his  reader  should  be  excited  to  a  sentiment  of  pa- 
triotism too  unqualified,  he  immediately  subjoins  :  — 

u  Such,  or  more  severe,  were  the  sentiments  promoted  by  a 
great  party  in  the  nation.  No  excuse,  on  the  king's  part,  or  al- 
leviation, however  reasonable,  could  be  hearkened  to  or  admit- 
ted ;  and  to  redress  these  grievances  a  parliament  was  impa- 
tiently longed  for,  or  any  other  incident,  however  calamitous, 
that  might  secure  the  people  against  those  oppressions  which 
they  felt,  or  the  greater  ills  which  they  apprehended  from  the 
combined  encroachments  of  church  and  state." 

My  hearers  will  easily  conceive,  that  it  is  impossible  for  me 
in  the  slightest  manner  to  enter  into  any  detail  of  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  the  political  questions  that  were  agitated,  and 
of  the  struggle  that  existed  during  these  two  intervals  of  four 
and  of  eleven  years.  I  have  attempted  to  do  what  alone  I 
can  hope  to  do  ;  I  have  pointed  out  a  few  of  the  more  leading 
topics  of  political  dissension,  as  specimens  of  the  whole,  and 
have  offered  such  observations  upon  them  as  I  am  willing  to 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  375 

believe  my  hearers,  when  they  come  to  examine  the  history, 
will  think  reasonable. 

But  we  must  now  look  at  this  subject  from  another  point  of 
view. 

I  have  already  apprized  you  that  the  Reformation  had  pro- 
duced in  England,  as  well  as  in  other  countries,  great  differen- 
ces of  opinion  on  religious  subjects,  and  that,  therefore,  the 
religious  principle  got  at  length  entangled  in  the  political  ques- 
tions that  agitated  the  nation.  This  will  be  immedately  appar- 
ent. I  have  already  touched  upon  a  few  of  the  points  of  CIVIL 
dispute  between  the  sovereign  and  his  parliaments  ;  I  must, 
therefore,  now  allude  to  those  of  a  religious  nature,  and,  there- 
fore, to  the  system  of  measures  which  Charles  pursued  with 
respect  to  the  neighbouring  kingdom  of  Scotland. 

It  is  observed  by  Mr.  Hume,  in  the  beginning  of  his  fifty- 
third  chapter,  that  "it  was  justly  apprehended  that  such  prece- 
dents (alluding  to  those  that  took  place  on  the  disuse  of  par- 
liaments), if  patiently  submitted  to,  would  end  in  a  total  disuse 
of  parliaments,  and  in  the  establishment  of  arbitrary  authority  ; 
but  that  Charles  dreaded  no  opposition  from  the  people,  who 
are  not  commonly  much  affected  with  consequences,  and  re- 
quire some  striking  motive  to  engage  them  in  a  resistance  to  an 
established  government." 

This  inertness  and  want  of  foresight,  which  the  historian  so 
justly  supposes  to  belong  to  the  mass  of  every  community, 
would  be,  of  all  the  characteristics  of  our  nature,  one  of  the 
most  beneficial,  if  the  rulers  of  mankind  would  not  ungener- 
ously abuse  it  ;  but  this  they  are  always  ready  to  do,  often  to 
the  injury  of  the  public,  and  sometimes  even  to  their  own  de- 
struction. 

Charles  had  been  persevering  in  this  faulty,  or  rather  crimi- 
nal course,  for  some  time  after  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign  ; 
but  as  he  added  folly  to  his  political  transgressions,  he  at  last 
supplied  his  subjects  with  that  "  striking  motive  "  which  the 
historian  justly  represents  as  so  necessary  to  rouse  a  people 
into  rebellion. 

Unfortunately  for  his  royal  house,  both  he  and  his  father  lived 
in  a  religious  age  :  and  their  particular  temperaments  impelled 
them  to  introduce  the  religious  principle  into  politics  ;  an  un- 


376  LECTURE  XV. 

worthy  direction,  which,  of  itself,  it  would  have  been  but  too 
apt  to  take  in  the  existing  circumstances  of  the  world. 

James  the  First  had  pronounced  the  celebrated  maxim  of 
"  No  bishop,  no  king."  The  divines  of  the  church  of  England 
were  in  these  times  not  wanting  in  their  endeavours  to  establish 
the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  ;  it  was  indeed  supposed  to 
be  the  unqualified  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures.  A  sympathy  and 
a  supposed  bond  of  interest,  to  be  carried  blindly  to  any  un- 
constitutional length,  was  thus  unhappily  formed  between  the 
regal  and  episcopal  power.  Add  to  this,  that  the  religion  of 
Charles  and  the  famous  Laud  was  narrow  and  intolerant ;  and 
in  a  fatal  hour  it  was  resolved  to  introduce  the  canons  and  lit- 
urgy of  the  church  of  England,  or  rather  a  modification  of  them, 
that  was  even  more  offensive,  into  Scotland. 

It  is  needless  to  speak  of  the  injustice  as  well  as  the  impru- 
dence of  such  an  experiment ;  but  it  is  too  important  a  feature 
in  the  portrait  of  these  times  not  to  require  the  most  perfect 
consideration  of  every  reader  of  our  history.  All  that  can  be 
said  in  extenuation  of  Charles  may  be  seen  in  Clarendon  and  in 
Hume  ;  but  you  will  do  well  to  peruse  much  of  this  part  of  the 
history  in  Burnet  ;  and  certainly  in  Rushworth's  Collections, 
where  the  dissimulation,  obstinacy,  and  folly  of  the  king  are 
more  shown  than  in  Hume  or  in  Clarendon,  and  where  the  fanati- 
cism of  the  members  of  the  Scotch  church  or  of  the  kirk  may 
also  be  seen  more  completely  by  being  displayed  in  the  very 
words  and  expressions  which  they  themselves  used,  and  of 
which  no  adequate  description  can  be  given.  Their  solemn 
league  and  covenant,  now  that  we  are  out  of  the  reach  of  it,  is, 
in  spite  of  the  seriousness  of  the  subject,  and  the  tremendous 
effects  it  produced,  such  a  specimen  of  the  Presbyterians  and 
of  the  times,  as  to  be,  I  had  almost  said,  amusing. 

I  do  not,  upon  the  whole,  think  it  proper  to  be  quoted  here, 
but  you  will  of  course  peruse  it  attentively. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Charles  at  length  made  concessions  to 
his  Scottish  subjects  ;  these  concessions  were  never  made  in 
time,  nor  ever  sufficient  for  the  occasion.  They  never  de- 
served the  praise  of  magnanimity;  and  they  therefore  never 
reaped  the  benefit  of  it.  From  the  first,  his  cause  in  Scotland 
was  continually  verging  to  defeat  and  disgrace.  However 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  377 

necessary  he  and  Laud  might  conceive  their  own  ecclesiastical 
institutions  to  be,  the  Covenanters  were  equally  clear  that  such 
relics  and  images  of  Popery  were  quite  fatal  to  all  rational 
hopes  of  acceptance  with  the  Deity.  The  king  drew  the 
sword  ;  the  obvious  consequence,  but  the  last  fatal  consum- 
mation of  his  impolicy  and  intolerance.  On  the  one  hand, 
contributions  were  levied,  by  the  influence  of  Laud,  on  the 
ecclesiastical  bodies  of  England  ;  while,  on  the  other,  the  pul- 
pits of  Scotland  resounded  with  anathemas  against  those,  who 
went  not  out  to  assist  the  Lord  against  the  mighty.  u  Curse 
ye  Meroz,  curse  ye  bitterly,"  &c.  &c. 

The  result  was,  as  it  is  desirable  it  may  always  be,  that  the 
cause  of  intolerance  was  successfully  resisted. 

But  the  effects  of  this  attempt  of  Charles  and  Laud  were  not 
to  end  with  Scotland. 

The  king  could  not  wage  war  without  expense,  nor  encoun- 
ter expense  without  pressing  upon  his  English  subjects. 

After  having  made  a  pacification  with  the  Scots,  the  king 
could  not  persuade  himself  fairly  to  give  up  the  contest ;  and 
he  therefore  once  more  collected  an  army  :  an  army  which  he 
could  not  pay  ;  and,  for  the  purpose  of  paying  it,  he  was  at  last 
obliged  to  summon  once  more  an  English  parliament,  and  this, 
after  an  intermission  of  eleven  years,  and  after  all  his  tyranni- 
cal expedients  to  do  without  one. 

And  here  commences  a  third  interval,  which  I  should  pro- 
pose to  extend  only  to  the  king's  journey  into  Scotland  in  the 
August  of  1641.  This  interval  includes  the  whole  sitting  of 
the  parliament  now  called,  and  the  first  period  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  next,  the  noted  parliament,  afterwards  called  the 
long  parliament ;  it  is  a  short  interval  of  about  a  year  ;  but  it 
is  clearly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  two  former  intervals, 
when  the  conduct  of  the  king  was  so  deserving  of  reprobation, 
and  again  from  the  fourth  or  last  interval,  when  the  conduct  of 
the  parliament  was  unequivocally  wrong.  Even  in  this  third, 
this  intermediate  interval,  the  king  was  still,  as  I  conceive,  to 
be  blamed,  and  the  parliament  to  be  praised  ;  but  this  blame 
and  this  praise  become  now  more  questionable,  and  not  to  be 
given  without  some  hesitation  and  reserve. 

When  the  parliament  met,  it  was  soon  evident  that  the 
king  only  wanted  money  ;  while  the  commons,  on  their  part, 

VOL.   i.  48 


378  LECTURE  XV. 

were  chiefly  anxious  for  proper  admissions  on  his.,  to  secure 
the  liberty  of  the  subject.  He  could  not  wait,  he  said,  for  the 
result  of  discussions  of  this  nature  ;  and  desired  to  be  supplied, 
in  the  first  place,  and  to  be  trusted  on  his  promise  for  a  subse- 
quent redress  of  their  grievances.  The  parliament  civilly  evad- 
ed his  request,  and  would  not  comply,  i.  e.  would  not  in  fact 
trust  his  promise  ;  they  were,  therefore,  dissolved  in  haste  and 
anger. 

This  important  measure,  which  was  decisive  of  his  fate  and 
of  the  peace  of  the  community,  will  be  found,  on  examination, 
though  it  may  not  at  first  sight  appear  so,  impolitic  and  un- 
justifiable. "  The  vessel  was  now  full,  "  says  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  u  and  this  last  drop  made  the  waters  of  bitterness 
overflow." 

It  was  a  subject  of  the  most  sincere  lamentation,  and  evi- 
dently a  measure  much  disapproved  by  Lord  Clarendon,  then 
Mr.  Hyde,  and  a  most  valuable  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, valuable  both  to  the  king  and  people. 

This  unfortunate  prince  seems  to  have  been,  even  at  this 
advanced  period  of  these  dissensions,  totally  unable  to  com- 
prehend his  own  situation,  or  make  the  slightest  provision  for 
future  contingencies. 

As  money  could  not  be  raised  by  parliament,  the  former 
illegal  expedients  were  renewed  ;  and  we  are  here  to  consider 
what  was  the  object,  all  this  time,  which  the  king  was  so  resolv- 
ed to  accomplish.  Was  it  justifiable  ?  The  introduction  of 
Laud's  canons  and  liturgy  into  Scotland  ? 

The  event  was,  that  an  army  undisciplined  and  ill  paid  was 
led  against  the  Scots,  and  found  unfit  to  contend  with  them ; 
and  every  thing  being  reduced  to  a  state  of  exasperation  and 
despair,  the  king,  after  calling  a  council  of  the  peers  at  York, 
once  more  thought  proper  to  summon  a  parliament. 

It  was  the  last  he  ever  did  summon  ;  it  was  the  long  parlia- 
ment. 

Hitherto  the  feelings  of  Englishmen  will  sufficiently  sym- 
pathize with  the  proceedings  of  the  commons.  But  as  the 
contest  between  prerogative  and  privilege  was  longer  contin- 
ued, and  grew  more  and  more  warm,  it  must  necessarily 
be  expected  that  the  hazards  and  perplexities  of  the  great 
leaders  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  to  increase,  and  that 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  379 

right  decisions  were  to  be  attained  with  more  difficulty.  After 
having  been  tried  in  the  perilous  warfare  of  doubtful  and  dan- 
gerous contest,  a  severer  trial  yet  remained,  that  of  success. 
They  were  now,  if  possible,  though  successful,  to  be  wise  and 
moderate. 

In  civil  dissensions  it  is  quite  impossible  to  suppose  that 
misconduct  shall  be  found  only  on  one  side.  Outrage  and  folly 
in  the  one  party  are  necessarily  followed  by  similar  offences  in 
the  other  ;  and  from  the  condition  of  human  infirmity,  it  must 
inevitably  happen,  that  in  examining  the  merits  and  demerits  of 
actors  in  scenes  like  these,  the  question  is  soon  altered  ;  and 
ceasing  to  be,  an  inquiry  of  which  is  in  the  right,  becomes 
rather  an  investigation  of  which  is  least  in  the  wrong. 

To  the  lasting  honor  of  the  long  parliament,  and  by  implica- 
tion of  the  parliaments  that  preceded,  it  does  not  appear  that 
its  measures  were,  for  a  certain  period,  with  one  exception, 
the  attainder  of  Lord  StrafTord,  and  perhaps  also  the  vote  for 
their  own  continuance,  at  all  censurable  ;  on  the  contrary,  that 
they  were  highly  laudable.  The  members  of  the  long  par- 
liament would  surely  have  been  unworthy  of  their  office  if 
they  had  not  provided  for  the  meeting  of  parliaments,  the 
integrity  of  the  judges,  the  extinction  of  monopolies,  and  the 
abolition  of  the  council  of  York,  and  the  courts  of  star-chamber 
and  high  commission. 

Lord  Falkland  and  Lord  Clarendon  concurred,  for  a  time, 
with  the  measures  of  the  popular  party  of  this  long  parlia- 
ment ;  and  the  major  part  of  the  house  is  stated  by  the  latter 
to  have  consisted  of  men  who  had  no  mind  to  break  the  peace 
of  the  kingdom,  or  to  make  any  considerable  alteration  in  the 
government  of  church  and  state. 

Mr.  Hume  himself,  in  his  fifty-fourth  chapter,  gives  the  fol- 
lowing opinion  :  observe  the  very  considerate  candor  of  his 
remarks.  "  In  short,  if  we  take  a  survey  of  the  transactions  of 
this  memorable  parliament  (that  is,  the  long  parliament),  during 
the  first  period  of  its  operation  (the  period  we  are  now  consid- 
ering), we  shall  find  that,  excepting  StrafTord 's  attainder,  which 
was  a  complication  of  cruel  iniquity,  their  merits  in  other  re- 
spects so  much  outweigh  their  mistakes,  as  to  entitle  them  to 
praise  from  all  lovers  of  liberty.  Not  only  were  former 


380  LECTURE  XV. 

abuses  remedied,  and  grievances  redressed  ;  great  provision 
for  the  future  was  made  by  law  against  the  return  of  like 
complaints,  and  if  the  means  by  which  they  obtained  such  ad- 
vantages savour  often  of  artifice,  sometimes  of  violence,  it  is 
to  be  considered  that  revolutions  of  government  cannot  be  ef- 
fected by  the  mere  force  of  argument  and  reasoning  ;  and  that 
factions  being  once  excited,  men  can  neither  so  firmly  regulate 
the  tempers  of  others,  nor  their  own,  as  to  insure  themselves 
against  all  exorbitances."  The  admissions  of  Mr.  Hume  are 
often  very  striking. 

Down,  therefore,  to  the  king's  journey  into  Scotland  in  Au- 
gust, 1041,  the  student  will  find  that,  with  the  exceptions  be- 
fore stated,  the  attainder  of  Lord  SlrafFord,  and  perhaps  the 
vote  for  their  own  continuance,  he  may  consider  his  country  as 
for  ever  indebted  to  those  who  thus  far  resisted  the  arbitrary 
practices  of  prerogative  ;  that  thus  far  they  are  perfectly  entitled 
to  the  highest  of  all  praise, — the  praise  of  steady,  courageous, 
and  enlightened  patriotism. 

The  next  interval  that  may  be  taken  is,  the  period  that  elaps- 
ed between  the  king's  journey  to  Scotland  in  August,  1641, 
and  the  commencement  of  hostilities. 

During  this,  the  fourth  interval,  the  measures  of  the  com- 
mons became  violent  and  unconstitutional.  That  this  should 
be  the  case  may  be  lamented,  but  cannot,  for  the  reasons  al- 
ready mentioned,  excite  much  surprise. 

There  were,  however,  various  circumstances  which  still 
further  contributed  most  unhappily  to  produce  these  mistaken 
and  blameable  proceedings.  I  will  mention  some  of  them  ; 
they  must  be  considered  as  explanations  and  palliatives  of  the 
faults  that  were  committed. 

For  instance,  and  in  the  first  place,  Lord  Clarendon,  after 
giving  the  testimony  which  I  have  quoted,  to  the  general  good 
intentions  of  the  long  parliament,  distinguishes  the  great  body 
of  the  house  from  some  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  popular 
party  ;  from  Pym,  Hampden,  St.  John,  Fiennes,  Sir  Harry 
Vane,  and  Denzel  Hollis,  &c.  That  men,  like  these,  men  of 
great  ability,  should  be  found  in  an  assembly  like  the  House  of 
Commons,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  ;  nor  that  such  men  should 
be  of  a  high  and  impetuous  nature,  or  should  succeed  in  their 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  381 

endeavours  to  lead  the  rest,  — men  of  calmer  sense  and  more 
moderate  tempers. 

Finally,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  moderate  men  of  this 
last  description  should  be  deficient  in  their  attendance  on  the 
house  ;  should  be  wanting  in  activity,  and,  above  all,  in  a  just 
confidence  in  themselves.  That  all  this  should  happen,  as, 
according  to  the  noble  historian,  seems  to  have  been  the  case, 
may  readily  be  supposed.  This  inactivity,  however,  this  want 
of  confidence  in  themselves,  was  fatal  to  the  state  ;  and  it  is 
from  circumstances  like  these  that  this  period  of  our  history  is 
only  rendered  still  more  deserving  of  the  study  of  every  Eng- 
lishman, and  of  all  posterity.  That  men  of  genius,  who  are 
the  more  daring  guides,  may  learn  the  temptations  of  their  par- 
ticular nature,  and  that  men  of  colder  sense,  who  are  the  more 
safe  guides,  should  be  taught  their  own  value,  —  should  be 
made  to  feel  that  it  is  they  alone  who  ought,  not  indeed  to 
propose,  but  ultimately  to  decide  ;  and,  though  they  may  not 
apparently  lead,  at  least  determine  and  in  fact  prescribe  the 
course  that  is  to  be  pursued  ;  that  it  is  their  duty  in  this,  their 
proper  province,  to  exert  themselves  manfully  and  without 
ceasing. 

For  instance,  the  great  occasion  on  which  the  moderate 
party  failed  was  in  the  prosecution  of  Lord  StrafTord.  That 
he  was  to  be  impeached  by  the  leaders  must  have  been  ex- 
pected ;  that  he  deserved  it  may  be  admitted  ;  but  that,  when 
the  existing  laws  did  not  sentence  him  to  condign  punishment, 
when  no  ingenuity  could  prove  that  he  had  capitally  offended, 
then  for  the  leaders  to  bring  in  a  bill  of  attainder,  that  is,  a 
bill  to  execute  him  with  or  without  law,  by  the  paramount  au- 
thority of  parliament,  or  rather  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
acting  merely  on  their  own  moral  estimation  of  the  case,  all 
this  was  what  no  moderate,  reasonable  men  should  ever  have 
admitted  ;  and  they  ought  surely  to  have  considered  that  if 
they  were  once  to  be  hurried  over  an  act  of  injustice,  —  a  real 
crime  against  the  laws  like  this,  —  it  was  impossible  to  say 
into  what  offences  they  might  not  afterwards  be  plunged,  by 
the  violence  of  which  they  saw  their  leaders  were  certainly 
capable,  on  the  one  part,  and  by  what  they  already  knew  of  the 
indiscretion  and  arbitrary  nature  of  the  king,  on  the  other. 


382  LECTURE  XV. 

The  very  animated  and  eloquent  Lord  Digby  exerted  his 
great  powers  on  this  occasion. 

There  is  something  of  a  doubtful  shade  hangs  over  the 
purity  of  his  c'onduct  in  these  transactions.  But  his  speech  to 
the  House  of  Commons  is  on  record,  and  ought  to  have  de- 
cided the  vote  of  every  member  present.  It  should  by  all 
means  be  read  ;  you  will  find  it  in  Cobbett.  The  proceedings 
of  the  house,  and  the  fate  of  the  speech,  — for  it  was  too  just 
and  sensible  not  to  excite  indignation  at  the  time  and  to  be 
burned  by  the  common  hangman,  —  afford  a  lesson  which 
should  never  be  forgotten. 

The  multitude,  ever  clamorous  for  punishment  and  public 
executions,  —  ever  careless  of  those  forms  of  law  in  which 
they  are  of  all  others  so  deeply  interested,  might  well  have 
terrified  even  the  commons  themselves,  and  made  them  pause  ; 
a  very  little  self-examination  might  have  enabled  these  legisla- 
tors to  discover,  that  they  saw  displayed  in  the  furious  looks 
and  voices  of  the  mob  only  a  ruder  image  of  their  own  intem- 
perate thirst  for  vengeance,  and  dangerous  disregard  of  the 
established  principles  of  justice. 

But  to  proceed  with  my  subject.  I  will  now  mention  an- 
other reason  to  account  for  the  unconstitutional  proceedings  of 
the  commons,  in  addition  to  the  reason  just  alluded  to,  the 
inertness  of  the  moderate  men.  It  is  this  :  the  pecular  nature 
of  the  times  in  which  the  great  leaders  of  the  commons  hap- 
pened to  live.  The  age  of  the  long  parliament  was  a  religious 
age. 

A  very  lively  portrait  of  the  different  sects  and  parties  and 
their  principles  of  speculation  and  action,  may  be  seen  in 
Hume,  in  Millar,  and  Clarendon. 

Now,  the  nature  of  this  religious  principle,  and  its  effects  on 
all  men,  must  serve  to  excuse  the  effects  which  it  also  pro- 
duced on  the  conduct  of  the  members  of  the  long  parliament. 

No  further  observation  is,  I  think,  necessary  on  this  part  of 
the  subject.  In  the  authors  I  have  just  mentioned  you  will 
see  all  that  you  may  readily  conceive  ;  you  will  see  how  the 
religious  principle  so  interfered  as  to  render  all  the  different 
parlies  in  ihe  state,  not  only  the  King  and  Laud,  but  also  the 
members  of  the  long  parliament,  obstinate,  unforgiving,  and 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  383 

unreasonable,  till  all  the  real  lovers  of  their  country  were  bur- 
ied, with  themselves,  in  a  common  destruction. 

Again,  and  in  the  third  place,  it  must  be  observed,  that  vari- 
ous incidents  occurred  of  the  most  untoward  nature  (the  Irish 
rebellion,  for  instance),  all  contributing  to  mislead  those  who  di- 
rected the  patriotic  party,  and  to  increase  the  perplexities  and 
calamities  of  the  scene. 

But  I  will  mention  one  circumstance  more,  in  the  fourth  and 
last  place,  to  account  for  the  mistakes  and  faults,  and  unconsti- 
tutional proceedings  of  the  long  parliament.  It  is  this  :  the 
conduct  of  the  king  himself.  This  conduct  was  marked  with 
such  a  total  want  of  foresight  and  prudence  as  made  all  reason- 
able system  in  his  opponents  impossible.  To  adopt,  for  the 
sake  of  illustration,  a  familiar  allusion,  you  cannot  play  a  game 
if  your  opponent  observes  not  the  common  rules  of  it.  The 
student  may  take,  as  an  instance,  his  visit  to  the  House  of 
Commons  to  seize  the  five  members. 

Such  are  the  four  heads,  under  some  of  which  may  be  in- 
cluded all  those  very  peculiar  events  and  circumstances  which 
I  conceive  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  when  we  de- 
cide on  the  blameable  proceedings  and  objectionable  temper 
of  the  long  parliament.  They  will  certainly  explain  and  ex- 
tenuate all,  excuse,  perhaps,  if  not  justify,  much  of  their  con- 
duct :  —  1.  The  inertness  of  the  moderate  men.  2.  The 
peculiar  nature  of  the  times,  and  the  religious  nature  of  them. 
3.  The  various  untoward  incidents  that  occurred  ;  the  Irish  re- 
bellion, e.  g.  4.  The  totally  unreasonable  conduct  of  the  king, 
which  made  any  reasonable  system  in  his  opponents  so  difficult 
and  impossible. 

The  result  of  the  whole  was,  that  the  parliamentary  leaders 
did  not  choose  to  trust  the  king  ;  and  they  required  from  him, 
for  their  own  security,  and  the  security  of  the  subject  (which, 
it  must  be  observed,  was  now  identified  with  their  own,  for  if 
they  had  failed,  no  further  resistance  could  have  been  again  ex- 
pected), they  required,  I  say,  such  concessions  as  trenched 
on  the  prerogative  of  the  crown,  more  than  any  precedents 
warranted  ;  more  than  any  constitutional  view  of  the  subject 
would  have  authorized  in  any  ordinary  situation  of  the  political 
system  ;  more  than  would  have  been  favorable  to  the  inter- 
ests of  England  at  any  subsequent  period.  The  question, 


384  LECTURE  XV. 

therefore,  which  we  have  at  length  to  decide,  is  this  :  whether 
these  leaders  were  justified  in  this  distrust  of  the  crown,  or 
not  ?  Whether  they  demanded  more  than  was  necessary  for 
their  own  security,  and  the  security  of  the  constitution,  which, 
as  I  have  before  observed,  were  now  identified  ;  for  if  they 
failed,  as  I  must  repeat,  no  subsequent  effort  could  have  been 
expected  from  others. 

And  this  question  ought,  in  candor,  to  be  argued  on  the 
supposition  that  the  king  was  in  reality  as  deeply  impressed 
with  the  rights  of  his  prerogative  as  ever  ;  as  little  disposed  as 
ever  to  rule  by  parliaments,  if  he  could  do  without  them  ;  as 
little  disposed  as  ever  to  consider  the  exertions  of  the  leaders 
of  the  commons  in  opposition  to  his  authority,  as  any  other 
than  disobedience  and  rebellion,  which  ought  to  be  punished 
according  to  its  various  degrees,  by  fine,  imprisonment,  or 
death  ;  for  these  are  the  inferences  that  may  clearly  be  drawn 
from  his  character,  his  education,  and  all  the  speeches  and  ac- 
tions of  his  reign,  down  to  the  very  period  to  which  we  now 
allude. 

But,  though  this  appears  nothing  more  than  a  fair  statement 
of  the  case,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  parliamentary  leaders 
should,  therefore,  not  have  trusted  the  king,  or  should  not  have 
thought  themselves  sufficiently  safe  and  successful,  after  they 
had  once  secured,  by  law  and  by  his  public  concessions,  such 
material  points  as  the  calling  of  parliaments,  the  right  of  taxa- 
tion, and  the  abolition  of  the  courts  of  star-chamber  and  high 
commission. 

We  are  called  upon  to  examine  whether  they  did  not  under- 
estimate their  own  strength  ;  whether  they  appear  to  have  con- 
sidered how  great  was  the  victory  which  they  had  obtained  ; 
whether  they  seem  to  have  asked  themselves  the  reason  of  it  ; 
whether,  in  short,  they  did  not  make  the  same  mistake  which 
is  so  naturally,  so  constantly  made  by  all  who  engage  in  con- 
tests of  this  or  any  other  kind,  the  mistake  of  never  supposing 
that  an  opponent  has  been  sufficiently  depressed. 

The  same  mistake  was  made  in  the  late  revolution  in  France. 
The  patriotic  party  of  that  country,  the  leaders  of  the  constit- 
uent assembly  of  1789,  could  never  bring  themselves  to  believe 
that  they  were  sufficiently  secure  from  the  court  and  their  op- 
ponents, that  the  executive  power  was  sufficiently  weakened, 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  385 

and  the  same  difficulty  or  error  operated,  as  in  our  own  coun- 
try, to  the  destruction  of  the  king  and  themselves. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  in  these  dreadful  conjunc- 
tures of  human  affairs,  this  particular  mistake  should  not  often 
be  made.  So  many  are  the  causes  which  concur  to  produce 
it ;  but  I  think  it  must  be  allowed  that  the  mistake  was  commit- 
ted by  the  parliamentary  leaders. 

The  mistake,  however,  be  it  made  when  it  may,  is  sure  to 
be  attended  by  the  most  fatal  effects.  The  old  system,  which 
those  who  have  loved  their  country  meant  only  to  improve,  is 
inevitably  destroyed  ;  and  the  early  patriots,  the  men  of  sense 
and  virtue,  are  overwhelmed  in  the  general  calamity.  They 
have  grasped  the  pillars  of  the  temple  ;  the  temple  falls,  and, 
like  the  strong  man  of  holy  writ,  they  bury  in  the  ruins  them- 
selves as  well  as  their  opponents. 

After  all,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  question  had  been 
a  question  of  prerogative  and  privilege  only,  the  proceedings  of 
the  commons  would  have  been  far  more,  and  perhaps  sufficient- 
ly, moderate  and  constitutional ;  but  the  misfortune  was,  that 
these  dissensions  were  not  merely  of  a  civil,  but  also  of  a  reli- 
gious nature.  How,  and  to  what  extent,  they  were  of  a  religious 
nature,  should  be  now  explained  to  you. 

But  here,  as  at  every  moment  during  these  particular  lec- 
tures on  the  Times  of  Charles  the  First  and  the  Common- 
wealth, I  could  wish  the  pages  of  Hurne  and  Millar  quite  pres- 
ent to  your  minds.  It  is  very  disagreeable  to  me  to  be  so 
conscious  as  I  must  be,  that  I  am  leaving  great  blanks  behind 
me,  as  I  go  on  ;  it  is  like  exhibiting  to  you  the  anatomy  of  the 
human  form,  by  way  of  a  portrait.  I  comfort  myself  with  be- 
lieving that  Hume  and  Millar  are  books  which  you  cannot  but 
read,  and  you  will  then  see  how  impossible  it  would  have  been 
for  me,  on  the  one  side,  to  have  discussed  any  topics  but  those 
they  have  selected,  and  yet,  on  the  other,  how  impossible  to 
have  given  here,  from  their  works,  any  extracts  sufficiently 
copious  ;  their  reasonings  are  so  many,  so  beautiful,  and  so 
weighty. 

On  this  present  occasion,  for  instance,  you  can  only  in  their 
writings  find  a  masterly  and  adequate  exhibition  of  the  religious 
as  well  as  civil  nature  of  this  contest ;  the  different  sects,  their 
views,  mistakes,  and  merits. 
VOL.  i.  49 


386  LECTURE  XV. 

I  can  only  simply  mention  here,  what  you  must  from  this 
time  remember,  that  there  were,  more  particularly,  four  differ- 
ent descriptions  of  religious  opinion,  —  the  Roman  Catholics, 
the  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  the  Presbyterians,  and 
lastly,  the  Independents  ;  that  of  the  four  descriptions  of  reli- 
gious opinion  that  existed  in  the  country  at  the  time,  the  Pres- 
byterians and  Independents  were  naturally  separated  from  those 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Church  of  England  communion  ; 
and,  however  differing  from  each  other  in  the  most  important 
points,  were  united  in  their  common  hatred  to  the  hierarchy, 
and  in  their  common  wish  for  a  form  of  worship  more  simple 
than  that  established  ;  at  all  events,  they  were  both  resolved  to 
have  no  bishops. 

As  Charles  and  Laud  could  not  be  satisfied  unless  they  at- 
tempted to  introduce  Episcopacy  into  Scotland,  the  puritanical 
interest  in  England  thought  their  labors  and  patriotism  in  the 
House  of  Commons  imperfect,  unless  they,  in  like  manner, 
improved,  according  to  their  own  particular  notions,  the  church 
government  of  England.  In  their  debates,  therefore,  their  pe- 
titions and  their  remonstrances  to  the  king,  instead  of  finding 
the  great  principles  of  civil  government,  and  those  only^  insist- 
ed upon,  we  are  totally  fatigued  and  overpowered  by  eternal 
complaints  and  invectives  against  Popish  priests  ;  the  non-exe- 
cution of  penal  laws  ;  diabolical  plots,  and  malignant  counsel- 
lors. It  is  not  only  Strafford  that  is  impeached,  but  also  Laud  ; 
it  is  not  only  the  right  of  the  commons  to  concur  in  the  taxation 
of  the  people  that  is  to  be  asserted,  but  the  bishops  are  to  have 
no  vote  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  and  when  the  mobs  assemble 
about  the  doors  of  the  houses  of  parliament,  the  streets  resound 
not  with  the  cry  of  parliament  and  privilege,  but  of  u  No 
Popish  prelates  ;  no  rotten-hearted  lords,"  &c.  &c.;  and  it  is 
not  corrupt  counsellors  or  arbitrary  judges,  but  it  is  the  bishops 
that  escape  with  difficulty  from  the  fury  of  this  theological 
populace. 

We  must  therefore  consider  whether  the  long  parliament 
would  have  acted,  as  they  did,  in  any  ordinary  state  of  their 
minds  and  feelings  ;  whether  the  king  would  have  found  it  so 
difficult  to  satisfy,  at  least  to  appease  them  ;  whether  their 
jealousy  would  have  been  so  sensitive  ;  their  dissatisfaction 
so  constant ;  their  complaints  so  ceaseless,  captious,  and  un- 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  387 

reasonable,  if  they  had  not  been,  in  a  word,  sectarians  as  well 
as  patriots. 

The  celebrated  remonstrance,  which  was  at  last  presented 
to  the  king,  and  was  so  fitted  by  its  tedious  ill-humor  to  drive 
him  to  any  possible  extremity,  was  with  great  difficulty  car- 
ried, and  if  it  had  not  been  carried,  Cromwell  told  Lord  Falk- 
land, he  would  have  quitted  the  kingdom  :  that  is,  in  other 
words,  this  manifesto  upon  which  subsequent  events  so  mate- 
terially  turned,  was  vitally  dear  to  the  Independents  ;  and 
would  probably  not  have  been  proposed,  much  less  voted,  if 
the  great  constitutional  question  of  prerogative  and  privilege  had 
not  been  interwoven  with  others  of  a  theological  nature  ;  ques- 
tions by  which,  it  unfortunately  happens,  that  the  minds  of 
men  may,  at  any  time,  be  exasperated  and  embittered  to  any 
possible  degree  of  fury  and  absurdity. 

It  remains,  therefore,  to  consider,  lastly,  how  far  the  Pres- 
byterians are  to  be  censured  for  this,  their  resolution  to  have 
the  government  altered  in  church,  as  well  as  in  state. 

Those  among  ourselves  living  in  a  subsequent  age,  who 
have  been  properly  enlightened  by  the  past,  who  not  only  see 
the  duty  of  mutual  tolerance,  but  act  upon  it,  and  who  do  not 
think  it  necessary  that  our  own  particular  notions  in  religion  or 
politics  should  be  established  and  made  to  take  the  lead,  mere- 
ly because  we  believe  them  true,  —  each  of  us  who  so  properly 
understand  the  principles  of  Christianity,  and  the  duties  of 
civilized  society  ;  such  of  us,  if  any  there  be,  may  perhaps 
have  some  little  right  to  censure  the  Presbyterian  faction. 
But  no  such  censure  could  be  exercised,  at  that  unhappy 
period,  by  any  of  the  actors  in  the  scene.  Not  by  Charles 
himself,  nor  Laud,  nor  the  Episcopalian  party,  for  they  had 
attempted  the  same  in  Scotland.  Not  by  any  church  or  sect 
then  existing,  for  it  was  an  age  of  religious  wars  and  mutual 
persecution. 

In  our  moral  criticisms,  therefore,  on  the  parties  of  these 
times,  when  we  are  speaking,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  not  of 
the  early  patriots,  but  of  the  members  of  the  long  parliament, 
we  have  some,  and  yet  but  little  preference  to  make.  Charles 
and  the  Episcopalians  are  guilty  of  the  first  act  of  hostility,  — 
at  least  of  the  first  violent,  and  even  cruel  proceedings, — 
the  Presbyterians,  of  urging  their  victory  too  far.  If  Charles 


388  LECTURE  XV. 

and  Laud  had  succeeded,  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of 
England  would  have  perished  ;  and  subsequently  the  Presby- 
terians could  not  succeed,  but  by  such  measures  as  rendered  a 
civil  war  inevitable.  It  may  be  possible  to  determine  which 
alternative  is  the  worst,  but  mankind  can  have  no  greater  ene- 
mies than  those  who  reduce  them  to  either. 

Charles  was  guilty  of  a  great  want  of  political  sagacity,  in 
not  perceiving  the  growing  strength  of  the  commons;  and, 
when  he  saw  the  increasing  number  of  the  sectaries,  in  not 
considering  well  the  cautious  and  moderate  system  which  he 
was  to  adopt  when  such  men  were  to  be  opposed  to  his  de- 
signs. 

But  the  Presbyterians,  in  like  manner,  seem  inexcusable  for 
not  taking  into  their  account  the  growing  strength  and  the  in- 
creasing numbers  of  the  Independents.  The  most  violent  of  the 
Presbyterians  had  no  intentions  to  overthrow  the  monarchy. 
But  when  they  ceased  to  act  on  a  system  of  accommodation 
with  the  king,  they  exposed  every  thing  to  the  ultimate  decis- 
ion of  violence.  They  might  themselves  wish  only  for  a 
limited  monarchy,  and  for  Presbyters  in  the  church  instead  of 
bishops  ;  but  a  set  of  men  remained  behind  them,  the  Inde- 
pendents, indisposed  to  all  monarchy  and  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment whatever  ;  and  they  were  guilty  of  the  fault,  either  of  not 
properly  observing  the  numbers  and  tenets  of  such  men,  or  of 
not  perceiving  that,  if  they  urged  their  differences  with  the 
king  to  the  decision  of  the  sword,  or  even  to  the  immediate 
chance  of  it,  men  of  this  violent,  unreasonable  character  must 
multiply,  and  be  produced  by  the  very  urgencies  of  the  times, 
and  could  not  fail  of  ultimately  overpowering  the  king,  the  par- 
liament, and  all  who  differed  with  them. 

It  must  at  the  same  time  be  confessed,  that  it  is  the  great 
misfortune  of  all  critical  periods  like  these,  that  parties  cannot 
very  immediately  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  They 
advance  together  under  the  same  standards  to  a  certain  point, 
and  then,  and  not  before,  they  separate  and  take  different 
directions  :  and  as  fury  and  absurdity  are  sure  to  be  th.3  most 
relished  by  the  multitude,  and  at  some  time  or  other  to  have 
the  ascendant,  moderate  men  perceive  not  in  time,  that,  on 
public,  as  well  as  on  private  grounds,  there  is  more  danger  to 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  389 

be  apprehended  from  many  of  those  who  appear  to  go  along 
with  them,  than  from  those,  who  are  their  visible,  decided,  and 
declared  opponents. 

Observations  of  this  kind  have  been  again  illustrated  by  the 
late  revolution  in  France,  and  may  therefore  seem  to  indicate 
principles  in  human  nature,  that  on  such  dreadful  occasions 
will  always  exhibit  themselves. 

The  vote  of  the  remonstrance  is  an  epoch  in  this  calamitous 
contest.  The  commons  are  not  to  be  justified  in  presenting 
this  remonstrance,  nor  to  be  justified  in  their  subsequent  meas- 
ures. It  may  be  very  true,  that  their  proceedings,  till  the 
king's  departure  into  Scotland  in  1641,  with  the  exception  of 
Lord  Strafford's  attainder,  and  perhaps  the  vote  for  their  own 
continuance,  were  (more  particularly  in  the  more  early  periods 
of  the  contest)  most  laudable  and  patriotic,  but  that  they  never 
were  so  afterwards. 

They  had  obtained  all  the  great  points  necessary  to  the 
constitution  :  and  the  king  told  them  in  June,  when  he  had 
finished  his  concessions  by  taking  away  the  courts  of  star- 
chamber  and  high  commission,  and  with  reason  told  them,  that 
if  they  would  consider  what  he  done  in  that  parliament,  "  dis- 
content would  not  sit  in  their  hearts."  u  I  hope  you  remem- 
ber (he  added)  1  have  granted,  that  the  judges  hereafter  shall 
hold  their  places,  quarndiu  se  bene  gesserint  :  I  have  bounded 
the  forests  ;  I  have  established  the  property  of  the  subject  ; 
I  have  established  the  same  property  of  the  subject  in  tonnage 
and  poundage  ;  I  have  granted  a  law  for  a  triennial  parlia- 
ment ;  I  have  given  free  course  to  justice  against  delinquents  ; 
I  have  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  Papists  ;  nay,  I  have 
given  way  to  every  thing  that  you  have  asked  of  me,  and 
therefore,  methinks,  you  should  not  wonder  if,  in  some  things, 
1  begin  to  refuse  :  I  will  not  stick  upon  trivial  matters  to  give 
you  content." 

I  would  therefore  fix  the  attention  of  the  student  on  the  fa- 
mous remonstrance,  and  the  proceedings  relating  to  it,  as  the 
particular  point  where  his  opinion  must,  as  I  conceive,  begin 
most  materially  to  alter. 

After  this  celebrated  remonstrance,  the  papers  on  each 
side  (which  were,  in  fact,  appeals  to  the  people,  as  was,  in- 
deed, the  remonstrance  itself)  become  very  voluminous,  and 


390  LECTURE  XV. 

will  somewhat  overpower  you.  Some  general  idea  must  be 
formed  of  them  by  some  sort  of  general  perusal  ;  but  the 
king's  cause  may,  from  this  time,  be  rested  on  this  very  re- 
monstrance alone,  a  paper  drawn  up  by  the  parliament  itself, 
and  quite  decisive  of  the  comparative  merits  of  the  king 
and  the  House  of  Commons,  from  the  moment  that  it  was 
delivered. 

Once  more,  therefore,  and  finally,  to  recall  to  your  minds 
what  I  conceive  are  the  points  of  this  great  question. 

During  the  first  interval  of  four  years,  the  conduct  of  the 
king  seems  infatuated,  and  highly  reprehensible  ;  and  during 
the  second  interval  of  eleven  years,  even  more  and  more  to 
be  reprobated,  I  had  almost  said  to  be  abhorred.  During  the 
third  interval,  of  little  more  than  a  year,  the  blame  still  remains 
with  the  king,  and  the  praise  with  the  commons  ;  clearly, 
however,  with  one  exception,  the  execution  of  Strafford  ;  and 
perhaps  with  another,  their  vote  for  their  own  continuance. 
During  the  fourth  interval,  however,  from  the  journey  to  Scot- 
land in  August,  1641,  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  the 
commons,  in  their  turn,  became  wrong  ;  but  the  question  of 
their  conduct  is  still  for  some  time,  in  the  opinion  of  many, 
somewhat  difficult  ;  the  question  is,  whether  they  were  push- 
ing their  victory  too  far,  or  only  securing  their  ground.  Hyde 
decided  one  way,  and  Hampden  another ;  and  perhaps  the 
student  may,  at  this  distance  of  time,  and  after  the  event,  on 
the  whole  perceive  that  Hyde  was  the  more  rational  patriot  of 
ihe  two. 

1  have  thus  proposed,  not  to  your  acquiescence,  but  to  your 
examination,  such  general  conclusions  upon  the  different  inter- 
vals which  I  have  selected,  as  the  transactions  which  they  ex- 
hibit, appeared  to  me  fairly  to  suggest.  But  these  transactions 
were  so  numerous,  yet  all  so  important,  that  not  only  was  it 
impossible  for  me  to  give  any  detail  of  them,  but  it  was  impos- 
sible to  state  all  the  observations  to  which  they  successively 
gave  rise,  even  in  my  own  mind.  What  I  have  alone  been 
able  to  offer  to  your  consideration  has  been  general  results, 
founded  on  such  observations. 

I  would  recommend  a  similar  course  to  each  of  my  hearers  ; 
let  such  reflections  as  strike  him,  while  he  reads  the  history, 
be  immediately  noted  down  at  the  time  ;  let  the  whole  chain 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  391 

be  then  surveyed,  and  general  results  and  estimates  formed, 
otherwise  the  later  impressions  which  the  mind  receives  in  the 
course  of  the  perusal,  will  have  an  effect  more  than  propor- 
tionate to  their  comparative  weight  and  importance. 

Do  not  turn  away  from  investigations  of  this  nature  ;  there 
are  those,  no  doubt,  who  proceed  not  in  this  manner  ;  practi- 
cal men,  men  of  the  world,  and  respectable  and  even  laborious 
writers  :  with  them  every  thing  on  the  one  side  is  right,  and 
on  the  other  is  wrong.  This  is  not  the  way,  in  my  opinion, 
to  read  history.  It  is  not  the  way  to  judge  of  our  fellow- 
creatures,  or  to  improve  ourselves. 


LECTURE  XVI. 

CIVIL  WAR. 

IN  my  two  last  lectures,  I  offered  to  your  consideration  the 
results  of  such  observations  as  had  occurred  to  me  on  the 
great  contest  that  subsisted  between  the  king  and  parliament, 
prior  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war,  more  particularly 
with  regard  to  their  comparative  merits  and  demerits. 

The  military  transactions  of  the  civil  war  that  ensued,  may 
be  collected  from  Hume,  and  still  more  in  the  detail  from 
Clarendon.  In  the  former  author  will  also  be  found  a  philo- 
sophic estimate  of  the  strength  and  resources  of  the  contend- 
ing parties,  and  of  their  separate  probabilities  of  success.  Dis- 
quisitions of  this  kind,  more  particularly  from  such  an  author, 
are  highly  deserving  of  your  attention.  The  entertainment 
and  instruction  of  history  can  never  be  properly  felt  or  under- 
stood, as  I  cannot  too  often  remark,  unless  you  meditate  upon 
the  existing  circumstances  of  the  scene  ;  suppose  them  before 
you,  and  estimate  the  probabilities  that  they  present  ;  then 
marking  the  events  that  really  take  place,  thus  derive  a  sort  of 
experience  in  the  affairs  of  mankind,  which  may  enable  you  to 
determine,  with  greater  precision  and  success,  on  occasions 
when  you  may  yourselves  be  called  upon  to  act  a  part,  and 
when  the  happiness  of  your  country  and  your  own  may,  more 
or  less,  be  affected  by  the  propriety  of  your  decisions. 

Materials  for  such  disquisitions,  and  such  exercise  of  the 
judgment,  are  often  supplied  by  Clarendon,  and  they  consti- 
tute, indeed,  one  material  and  appropriate  part  of  the  value  of 
all  original  writers  of  history.  In  original  writers,  the  real 
scene  is  presented  to  you  in  colors  more  vivid  and  more  exact. 

The  king  seems  to  have  been  every  way  unfortunate.    With 


CIVIL  WAR.  393 

sufficient  courage  and  ability  to  make  him  the  proper  general 
of  his  own  forces,  he  was  still  not  possessed  of  that  military 
genius  which  is  fitted  to  triumph  over  difficulties,  which  can 
turn  to  its  own  purposes  the  dispositions  of  men,  and  the 
opportunities  and  unsuspected  advantages  of  every  situation  : 
which  can  seem  by  these  means  to  control  the  decisions  of 
chance,  and  to  command  success.  That  a  soldier,  however, 
of  this  description,  should  arise  against  him  on  the  popular 
side,  was  to  be  expected  ;  a  captain  like  Cromwell  was  sure 
to  appear,  at  least  to  exist,  in  the  ranks  of  his  opponents. 
But  that  such  a  general  as  Fairfax  should  be  found  among 
the  men  of  distinction  in  the  country,  and  yet  be  opposed  to 
his  cause,  this  might  surely  be  considered  by  the  king  as  a 
hard  dispensation  of  fortune.  Still  harder,  if  it  be  considered, 
that  Fairfax  was,  of  all  other  men  that  history  presents,  the 
most  fitted  for  the  purposes  of  a  soldier  like  Cromwell  :  too 
honest  to  have  criminal  designs  of  his  own  ;  too  magnanimous 
to  suspect  them  in  those  around  him  ;  superior  to  every  other 
in  the  field  ;  inferior  in  the  cabinet  ;  enthusiastic  enough  to 
be  easily  deceived,  but  not  enough  to  be  a  hypocrite,  and  to 
deceive  others. 

The  character  of  Cromwell  seems  the  natural  production  of 
the  times,  though,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  most  complete 
specimen  of  their  influence  that  can  well  be  imagined  ;  still, 
the  character  itself  consists  but  of  the  common  materials,  — 
courage,  fierceness,  decisive  sense,  clear  sagacity,  and  strong 
ambition ;  all,  no  doubt,  given  in  a  very  eminent  degree, 
added  to  such  qualities  as  resulted  from  an  age  of  religious 
dispute  ;  and  the  whole  nourished  and  drawn  out  in  the 
most  extraordinary  manner,  by  the  temptations  and  urgencies 
of  a  revolutionary  period.  Hampden  early  predicted  his 
future  eminence,  on  one  supposition, — the  breaking  out  of 
a  civil  war. 

From  the  moment  that  the  sword  was  drawn,  all  wise  and 
good  men  must,  with  Lord  Falkland,  have  been  overpowered 
with  the  most  afflicting  expectations.  One  of  two  alternatives, 
equally  painful,  could  alone  have  occurred  to  them  as  prob- 
able ;  either  that  the  king  would  conquer,  and  the  privileges 
of  the  subject,  and  all  future  defence  of  thgm,  be  swept 
away  in  his  triumph  ;  or  that  the  parliament  would  prevail,  and 

VOL.   i.  50 


394  LECTURE  XVI. 

the  result  be,  that  the  whole  government,  for  want  of  some 
proper  constitutional  head,  would  fall  into  the  disposal  of  the 
army,  and  be  seized  upon  by  some  of  its  great  captains,  to 
the  total  degradation,  and  probably  to  the  destruction,  of  the  ex- 
isting monarch  ;  perhaps  even  of  the  ancient  forms  of  monarchy 
itself. 

I  must  leave  you  to  examine  for  yourselves  the  various 
events  of  the  civil  war, — the  military  operations  in  the  field, 
and  the  transactions  in  parliament,  —  all  of  them  very  interest- 
ing. They  may  be  found  in  the  regular  historians  (particularly 
Clarendon),  and  in  the  accounts  that  have  come  down  to  us  of 
the  debates  in  the  long  parliament. 

I  can  only  make  a  few  observations  on  some  of  the  leading 
transactions,  chiefly  those  of  a  civil  nature. 

Among  other  objects  of  attention,  the  self-denying  ordi- 
nance should  be  noticed.  On  this  occasion,  the  two  parties 
came  to  issue,  —  the  Presbyterians  and  Independents  ;  the  one 
who  wished  for  Presbytery  and  monarchy  ;  the  other,  who  had 
abondoned  themselves  to  their  own  imaginary  schemes  of 
perfection  in  religion  and  government ;  most  of  them,  proba- 
bly, without  any  settled  notions  in  either.  Violence  and 
enthusiasm,  the  great  banes  of  all  public  assembles  in  times  of 
disorder,  at  last  prevailed,  and  the  self-denying  ordinance  was 
carried. 

By  this  ordinance,  the  members  of  both  houses  were  ex- 
cluded from  all  the  important  civil  and  military  employments. 
The  Presbyterians,  who  were  in  power,  were,  by  this  contriv- 
ance, obliged  to  resign  it.  Yet,  when  the  evasion  of  the  ordi- 
nance by  Cromwell  is  also  considered,  a  more  barefaced,  po- 
litical expedient  cannot  easily  be  imagined  :  the  very  idea  of 
it,  not  to  say  the  success  of  it,  as  described  by  Lord  Claren- 
don, and  as  seen  in  the  speeches  and  subsequent  conduct  of 
Cromwell,  who  contrived  to  elude  it,  and  retain  his  command, 
are  quite  characteristic  of  this  strange  period  of  our  history. 
It  was,  in  truth,  an  expedient  to  clear  the  army  from  all  the 
more  moderate  men  who  were  then  in  command. 

After  the  self-denying  ordinance,  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge 
must  be  considered,  as  the  next  principal  object  of  attention. 
The  proceedings  are  very  fully  detailed  by  an  actor  in  the 
scene,  Lord  Clarendon  ;  and  as  this  was  quite  a  crisis  in  the 


CIVIL  WAR.  395 

contest,  the  question  is,  when  the  negotiation  did  not  lead  to 
accommodation  and  peace,  which  parly  was  in  fault  ?  To 
me,  I  confess,  the  conclusion  from  the  whole  seems  to  be,  that 
the  Presbyterians  were  in  fault,  and  that  they  cannot  be  for- 
given for  not  closing  with  the  king  immediately  on  the  terms 
which  he  proposed,  not  merely  from  a  sense  of  propriety  and 
justice,  but  from  the  apprehension  with  which  Cromwell  and 
the  Independents  ought  to  have  inspired  them.  It  even  ap- 
pears, from  a  curious  conference  mentioned  by  Whitelocke, 
which  was  held  one  night  at  Essex  House,  before  the  self- 
denying  ordinance  had  been  moved  in  the  house,  that  Crom- 
well was  already  dreaded  ;  yet  no  danger,  no  distress  could 
produce  any  reasonable  effect  either  on  the  Presbyterians  in 
parliament  or  on  the  king. 

Religious  considerations  had  unhappily  interfered  to  make 
what  was  difficult,  impossible.  The  king  could  not  entirely 
give  up  Episcopacy,  and  the  Presbyterians,  with  still  more  of 
theological  infatuation,  were  determined  to  have  their  Presby- 
tery exclusively  established. 

All  hopes  of  accommodation  were  at  an  end.  u  Most  sober 
men,'7  says  Whitelocke,  "  lamented  the  sudden  breach  of  the 
treaty." 

The  victory  of  Naseby  followed,  and  the  cause  of  the  king 
was  desperate.  This  is  again  a  sort  of  epoch  in  this  contest. 
Charles,  not  possessed  of  a  genius  that  can  sometimes  make 
even  a  desperate  cause  at  last  triumphant,  repaired,  without 
speculating  very  long  or  reasonably  upon  the  consequences,  to 
the  Scotch  army. 

The  Scotch  army  could  discover  in  their  new  situation  no 
better  course  to  pursue  than  at  all  events  to  make  the  king  a 
means  of  procuring  their  arrears  from  the  English  parliament, 
and  to  barter  the  person  of  their -sovereign  for  the  money  that 
was  due  to  them. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  a  common  question  of  ac- 
count might  have  been  settled  by  the  godly  (so  they  termed 
themselves)  on  each  side  of  the  Tweed  on  the  usual  princi- 
ples of  arithmetic  and  honesty,  —  certainly  without  so  unusual 
a  transfer  as  the  person  of  their  monarch  ;  but  not  so  :  it  was 
in  this  manner,  it  seems,  that  the  differences  between  the 
two  parties  could  best  be  adjusted.  The  bargain  was  settled, 


396  LECTURE  XVI. 

the  king  delivered  up,  and  the  Scotch  retired  to  their  own 
country. 

Their  posterity  have  ever  since  been  ashamed  of  this  coarse 
and  disgraceful  transaction,  for,  after  every  explanation  of  it, 
such  it  is  ;  and  if  the  English  were  ashamed  also,  they  would 
do  themselves  no  injustice. 

From  this  period  we  must  be  occupied  in  observing  the 
mistakes  and  faults  of  the  king  and  the  Presbyterians,  on  the 
one  side  ;  the  guilt  of  Cromwell  and  the  Independents  on  the 
other. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  cast  our  eyes  on  the  conduct  of 
the  army. 

The  scene  that  by  reasonable  men  must  have  been  long  ex- 
pected, now  opened.  The  army,  having  no  enemy  to  contend 
with  in  the  field,  began,  under  the  direction  of  Cromwell,  to 
control  the  parliament,  the  Presbyterians. 

The  proceedings  of  an  armed  body  of  men  like  this,  on  such 
an  occasion,  are  unhappily  but  too  deserving  of  our  very  par- 
ticular observation. 

But  the  conduct  of  the  Presbyterians,  and  of  those  in  the 
house  who  meant  well,  continued  as  injudicious  as  ever. 

The  soldiers  had  real  causes  of  complaint,  and  the  parlia- 
ment made  the  usual  mistake  of  all  regular  assemblies,  when 
dealing  with  irregular  combinations  of  men  ;  they  did  not  take 
care,  in  the  first  place,  to  do  them  justice  ;  they  did  not  take 
care  (as  soon  as  possible)  to  put  themselves  entirely  in  the 
right ;  they  were,  as  usual,  too  proud  to  be  wise  ;  they  there- 
fore, no  doubt,  gave  Cromwell  and  those  who  meant  ill  every 
advantage. 

They  even  committed  other  mistakes  still'  more  unpardona- 
ble, by  sending  down  to  the  army  Cromwell  and  the  very  in- 
cendiaries themselves  to  compose  differences. 

When  the  parliament  became  more  reasonable  and  just,  it 
was,  as  is  usually  the  case,  too  late. 

And  now  was  the  season  when  the  king  was  to  commit  his 
political  mistakes. 

While  he  was  in  fact  at  the  disposal  and  in  the  hands  of  the 
army,  he  had  to  deal  with  the  parliament  and  the  Presbyterian 
faction  and  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  as  one  party  ;  with  the 
army  and  Independents,  as  another. 


CIVIL  WAR.  397 

There  is  something  of  doubt  hangs  over  the  intentions  of 
Cromwell  and  the  army  on  this  occasion,  —  whether  they  really 
meant  to  support  the  king,  and  restore  him  to  his  constitutional 
authority  or  not. 

Sir  John  Berkely's  Memoirs  speak  of  a  very  fair  and  rea- 
sonable negotiation  on  their  part.  Plis  account  may  be  found 
also  incorporated  into  the  history  of  Ludlow. 

Clarendon  seems  not  to  think  much  of  the  importance  of 
this  negotiation  ;  but  he  did  not  like  Berkely.  It  is  on  the 
whole,  however,  plain,  that  Charles  unfortunately  supposed 
he  should,  in  the  existing  situation  of  the  parties  of  the  state, 
be  called  in  as  an  umpire  ;  many  prudent  men,  according  to 
Lord  Clarendon,  expected  the  same  ;  and  in  this  fatal  inde- 
cision and  vain  wish  to  keep  well  with  all  descriptions  of  men, 
Charles  could  not  be  properly  trusted  by  any,  least  of  all  by 
men  violent  and  decided  Jike  Cromwell  and  Ireton.  Charles 
was  no  controller  of  circumstances  and  of  the  minds  of  others, 
and  no  discerner  of  characters  and  opportunities.  He  made 
no  advantage  of  his  situation,  and  insensibly  approached  his 
scaffold,  not  his  throne. 

The  last  specimen  of  political  infatuation  in  the  Presbyte- 
rians and  the  king  yet  remained  ;  their  conduct  during  the 
treaty  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  :  another  important  point  of  at- 
tention. 

The  army  had,  in  the  most  illegal  manner,  interfered  with 
the  parliament,  had  become  their  masters,  and  perfectly  tyran- 
nized over  them.  In  this  state  of  things  insurrections  in 
favor  of  the  king  appeared  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom  ; 
and  a  regular  attempt  was  made  by  the  Scotch  with  all  their 
forces  in  favor  of  him  and  the  parliament.  For  one  precious 
interval,  therefore,  the  Presbyterians  were  relieved  from  the 
domination  of  Cromwell  and  the  army,  who  were  sent  to  put 
down  these  insurgents. 

As  the  Presbyterians  were  all  of  them  attached  to  a  mon- 
archical form  of  government,  there  was  once  more  a  possi- 
bility of  a  conciliation  between  them  and  the  king.  Cromwell 
and  his  army  were  employed,  and  at  such  a  distance,  that 
they  could  give  no  interruption.  A  treaty  was  begun,  but 
no  adequate  progress  was  made,  —  no  progress,  till  the  army 
returned,  —  returned  triumphant,  and  with  all  their  counsels 


398  LECTURE  XVI. 

of  violence  and  guilt ;  the  opportunity  of  peace  was  lost  for 
ever. 

The  question,  then,  is  here,  as  before  in  the  treaty  of  Ux- 
bridge,  was  the  king  or  the  parliament  most  in  fault  ? 

The  great  load  of  political  folly,  even  of  moral  criminality, 
must  fall  upon  the  parliament ;  for  their  terms  were  abominably 
unfeeling  and  unjust. 

In  consequence  of  the  pertinacious,  dilatory,  impolitic  con- 
duct of  the  Presbyterians,  before  the  king's  final  propositions 
for  peace  could  be  adjusted  and  debated,  Cromwell  and  the 
army  had  marched  to  the  metropolis,  and  .every  member  of  the 
house  who  delivered  an  opinion  consonant  to  right  and  justice, 
and  favorable  to  any  accommodation  with  the  king,  did  it  at 
the  hazard  of  imprisonment  and  death. 

In  this  calamitous  state  of  things,  the  famous  Prynne  rose 
up  in  his  place,  and  delivered  a  speech  in  defence  of  the 
king's  answers  to  the  propositions  of  parliament.  Long  as 
it  is,  I  cannot  but  recommend  it  to  an  entire  and  attentive 
perusal.  Allowance  must  be  made  for  the  violence  of  the 
author's  prejudices  in  favor  of  Presbytery  and  against  Po- 
pery, and  when  this  allowance  has  been  made,  it  will  be 
found  that  a  train  of  persuasion  more  fairly  drawn  out  and 
more  clearly  conducted  to  effect  a  particular  purpose  has 
seldom  been  produced  before  a  public  assembly.  You  will 
see  it  in  Cobbett.  Certainly  a  more  striking  exhibition  of 
principle  never  occurred.  Prynne  was  speaking  in  an  as- 
sembly overawed  by  soldiers,  in  a  situation  that  might  have 
made  a  Roman  shrink.  Every  reason  that  could  irritate  the 
heart  of  man  concurred  to  render  him  inveterate  against  the 
king.  He  had  to  preface  his  arguments  with  relating  what 
he  had  endured  from  him.  He  said  "  that  at  two  different 
times  he  had  suffered  mutilations  in  the  most  barbarous  man- 
ner (these  are  specimens,  it  is  to  be  observed,  of  the  con- 
duct of  Charles  and  Laud,  —  note  them)  ;  that  he  had  been 
set  upon  three  several  pillories  ;  that  his  licensed  books  had 
been  burned  before  his  face  by  the  hangman  ;  that  two  fines 
each  of  five  thousand  pounds  (what  a  sum  in  those  days  !  ) 
had  been  imposed  upon  him  ;  that  he  had  been  expelled  out 
of  the  Inns  of  Court  and  university  of  Oxford,  and  degraded 
in  both  ;  that  he  had  lost  his  calling  almost  nine  years'  space  ; 


CIVIL  WAR.  399 

that  his  books  had  been  seized,  and  his  estate;  that  he  had 
been  eight  years  imprisoned  in  several  prisons  ;  that  four  of 
these  years  had  been  spent  in  close  imprisonment  and  exile,  at 
Carnarvon,  and  in  the  Isle  of  Jersey,  where  he  was  debarred 
the  use  of  pen,  ink,  paper,  and  all  books  almost  but  the  Bible, 
without  the  least  access  of  any  friend,  or  any  allowance  of  diet 
for  his  support  ;  and  all  this  for  his  good  service  to  the  state  in 
opposing  Popery  and  regal  tyranny." 

Yet  did  this  virtuous  man  continue  to  reason  out  his  conclu- 
sion, hour  after  hour,  with  the  most  patient  and  penetrating 
sagacity,  —  continue  to  show  himself  superior  alike  to  the 
meanness  of  fear  from  Cromwell  and  the  soldiers,  and  the  re- 
membrance of  all  the  ferocious  insults  and  all  the  abominable 
pains  and  penalties  which  he  had  endured  from  Charles  and  his 
advisers  ;  in  defiance  of  all,  he  continued  to  enforce  upon  the 
house,  by  the  exertion  of  every  faculty  he  could  command,  his 
own  upright  declaration,  that  they  were  bound  in  honor,  pru- 
dence, justice,  and  conscience,  to  proceed  upon  the  king's 
propositions  to  the  speedy  settlement  of  the  peace  of  the  king- 
dom. 

Still  further  to  the  credit  of  human  nature,  it  is  to  be  men- 
tioned, that  this  speech  had  a  most  clear  and  positive  effect, 
that  many  members  were  converted  to  his  side,  that  his  opinion 
prevailed,  and  would  probably  have  prevailed  by  a  far  larger 
majority,  if  nearly  one  third  of  the  house,  from  age  and  infirmi- 
ties, had  not  been  obliged  to  retire. 

The  debate  had  lasted  without  intermission  for  a  day  and  a 
night. 

The  subsequent  events  are  but  too  well  known.  Cromwell 
and  the  army  sent  Colonel  Pride  to  clear  the  house  of  all  who 
were  disposed  to  an  accommodation  with  the  king.  The  pub- 
lic execution  of  the  sovereign  followed. 

This  cruel  and  dreadful  outrage  has  given  occasion  to  much 
reasoning  with  respect  to  the  nature  of  government,  and  the 
original  grounds  of  civil  obedience.  No  subject  can  be  more 
interesting,  and  it  may  very  properly  employ  your  meditations 
when  you  arrive  at  an  event  so  afflicting  and  so  awful  as  the 
public  execution,  in  the  midst  of  a  civilized  community,  of  the 
great  and  high  magistrate  of  the  realm. 


400  LECTURE  XVI. 

On  such  a  subject,  the  observations  of  such  a  writer  as 
Hume  will  naturally  engage  your  attention. 

u  Government,"  says  this  philosophic  historian,  u  is  institut- 
ed in  order  to  restrain  the  fury  and  injustice  of  the  people ;  and 
as  it  is  dangerous  to  weaken  the  reverence  which  the  multitude 
owe  to  authority,  it  is  the  doctrine  of  obedience  which  ought 
alone  to  be  inculcated  in  popular  reasonings  and  discourses  ; 
nor  is  there  any  danger  that  mankind,  by  this  prudent  reserve, 
should  universally  degenerate  into  a  state  of  abject  servitude. 
When  the  exception  really  occurs,  it  must,  from  its  very  na- 
ture, overpower  the  restraint  imposed  by  teaching  the  general 
doctrine  of  obedience ;  but  between  resisting  a  prince  and  de- 
throning him  there  is  a  wide  interval,  and  another  still  greater 
between  dethroning  and  punishing  him.  We  stand  astonished, 
that,  amid  a  civilized  people,  so  much  virtue  as  was  possessed 
by  Charles,  could  ever  meet  with  so  fatal  a  catastrophe." 

To  this  weighty  reasoning  something  must  be  added  (and  it 
is  not  added  by  the  historian),  or  the  discussion  of  this  subject 
will  be  surely  left  most  materially  imperfect. 

Government  is  no  doubt  instituted  for  the  restraint  of  the 
people,  but  it  is  also  instituted  for  the  promotion  of  their  hap- 
piness ;  and  while  obedience  is  the  duty  that  should  be  incul- 
cated on  the  people,  resistance  is  the  doctrine  that  should  be 
ever  present  to  the  rulers.  There  may  be  intervals  between 
resisting,  dethroning,  and  executing  a  sovereign,  and  the  last 
may  be  an  extremity  which  ought  never  to  be  supposed  possi- 
ble ;  but  there  is  a  wide  interval,  in  like  manner,  between  ra- 
tional obedience  and  servile  submission  ;  and  though  rational 
obedience  be  necessary  to  all  human  society,  servile  submission 
is  inconsistent  with  all  its  purposes  and  enjoyments.  No  peo- 
ple can  be  long  happy  that  do  not  reverence  authority  ;  but 
no  governors  will  long  do  their  duty  who  do  not  respect  the 
public. 

"  Obedience,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  uis  the  doctrine  to  be  alone 
inculcated  ;  nor  is  there  any  danger  that  mankind  should  de- 
generate into  a  state  of  servitude :  when  the  exception  occurs, 
it  will  overpower  the  restraint  imposed  by  the  general  doc- 
trine." 

But  is  no  resistance  to  begin  till  such  extremes  of  oppres- 


CIVIL  WAR.  401 

sion  arise,  as  create  an  exception  to  all  general  rules  ?  If  such 
is  to  be  the  nature  of  resistance  and  obedience,  as  Mr.  Hume 
seems  to  suppose,  it  will  then  be  found  that  resistance,  when 
it  does  come,  has  come  too  late  ;  it  will  then  be  found  that  the 
people  can  seldom  resist  their  governors  without  fatally  injur- 
ing themselves. 

This,  therefore,  is  neither  the  resistance  nor  the  obedience 
that  is  wanted,  and  something  very  different  from  either  must 
be  generated  by  some  means  or  other  in  a  community,  or  the 
great  political  problem  of  the  public  happiness  and  security  is 
neither  solved,  nor  its  solution  in  any  reasonable  degree  even 
approached.  It  can  only  be  solved  by  one  expedient. 

Some  power  of  criticism  must  be  given  to  the  people  upon 
the  conduct  of  their  rulers  ;  must  be  introduced  into  the  politi- 
cal system,  to  be  so  reasonably  and  yet  so  constantly  exer- 
cised, that  it  shall  be  respected  in  time  by  those  rulers,  and  be 
so  taken  into  their  account,  while  they  are  forming  their  meas- 
ures, that  it  shall  always  have  an  effective  tendency  to  render 
their  proceedings  sufficiently  agreeable  to  the  public  good. 
Some  power  of  criticism  like  this,  if  by  any  machinery  of 
government,  by  representative  assemblies  for  instance,  it  can 
be  made  to  exist,  can  never  exist  without  being  a  cause  of  the 
most  complete  improvement  and  advantage  to  both  parties,  to 
those  who  are  to  command,  and  to  those  who  are  to  obey. 
The  constitution,  therefore,  of  a  country  is  good  exactly  in 
proportion  as  it  supplies  this  power  of  peaceable  yet  operative 
criticism  ;  it  cannot  be  good  without  it,  and  the  reasons  for 
civil  obedience  are  so  many,  and  so  powerful,  that  the  rulers 
of  mankind  are  always  secure,  in  their  honors  and  their  situa- 
tion, while  they  administer  the  high  office  which  they  bear, 
with  any  tolerable  portion  of  wisdom  and  integrity. 

The  character  of  Charles  has  been  drawn  by  the  first  mas- 
ters, and  may  be  now  considered  as  sufficiently  understood. 
The  truth  is,  that  his  situation  at  successive  periods  of  his 
reign  was  so  different,  that  we  view  him  with  sentiments  the 
most  different,  though  his  character  was  always  intrinsically 
the  same.  He  is  no  object  of  our  affection  and  respect,  but 
of  reprehension,  and  almost  of  contempt,  while  we  observe 
him  in  the  early  part  of  his  life,  though  a  prince  destined  for 
empire,  finding  the  friend  of  his  bosom  in  Buckingham,  the 

VOL.   I.  51 


402  LECTURE  XVI. 

unworthy  favorite  of  his  father,  without  capacity  as  a  minister, 
or  virtue  as  a  man. 

For  the  first  few  years  after  his  accession,  his  conduct  is 
only  fitted  to  create  in  us  very  warm  disapprobation,  strong 
dislike  of  his  measures,  and  suspicion  of  his  intentions. 

Afterwards,  from  the  years  1629  to  1640,  while  endeavour- 
ing to  rule  without  parliaments,  he  appears  before  us  in  no 
other  light  but  in  that  of  a  prince  of  narrow  mind  and  arbitrary 
nature  ;  incapable  of  respecting  the  civil  and  religious  liberties 
of  his  country  ;  hurrying  on  to  the  destruction  of  them  ;  and 
the  proper  object  of  our  unequivocal  hatred  and  indignation. 

These  emotions,  however,  gradually  subside,  soon  after  the 
meeting  of  the  long  parliament,  as  he  gradually  relinquishes, 
though  by  compulsion,  the  dangerous  prerogatives  he  had 
attempted  to  establish. 

But  when  a  still  further  change  of  situation  takes  place,  and 
when  the  parliament,  in  its  turn,  becomes  unreasonable  and 
bigoted,  his  offences  are  forgotten,  for  he  ceases  to  be  the 
offender  ;  and  as  we  begin  to  dislike  the  parliament,  he  is 
necessarily  considered,  first  with  complacency,  and  then  with 
favor. 

But  yet  another  change,  still  more  affecting,  is  to  be  wit- 
nessed ;  and  we  do  not  deny  him,  we  willingly  offer  him,  our 
esteem,  when  we  survey  him  at  last  supporting,  with  firmness 
and  courage  in  the  field,  the  honor  of  his  crown  against  men, 
whom  it  was  impossible  to  satisfy  by  any  fair  concessions  in 
the  cabinet. 

Once  more  are  our  sentiments  altered  ;  and  this  esteem  is 
softened  into  kindness  when  his  fortunes  lower  ;  when  the  bat- 
tle of  Naseby  is  lost,  and  when  the  sword  which  he  has  drawn 
in  vain  must  be  at  last  thrown  down  and  abandoned. 

But  scenes  still  more  gloomy  and  affecting  are  to  be  open- 
ed. He  is  to  be  a  monarch  "  fallen  from  his  high  estate  "  ; 
he  is  to  fly  he  knows  not  whither,  to  try  expedients  without 
hope,  and  plans  without  a  meaning  ;  to  negotiate  with  his 
conquerors  ;  to  be  called  upon  to  proscribe  his  friends,  and 
to  stigmatize  his  own  cause  ;  to  be  required  by  formal  treaty, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  world  and  of  posterity,  to  be  his  own 
accuser,  — his  own  accuser,  and  the  accuser  of  every  thing  he 
holds  venerable  and  dear  ;  to  be  passed  from  prison  to  prison, 


CIVIL  WAR.  403 

and  from  enemy  to  enemy.  We  are  to. see  him  solitary  and 
friendless  ;  his  "gray  discrowned  head,  with  none  to  reverence 
it,"  and,  alone  and  unprotected,  left  to  expostulate  with  enthu- 
siasts, no  longer  within  the  reach  of  the  common  workings  of 
our  nature,  or  with  ferocious  soldiers,  who  call  aloud,  they 
know  not  why,  for  justice  and  execution  ;  arraign  him  before  a 
court  of  their  own  formation,  and  proclaim  him  a  traitor  to  his 
country,  and  the  murderer  of  his  people  ! 

With  what  sentiments  are  we  now  to  behold  him  ?  With 
our  former  suspicions  and  dislike,  indignation,  and  terror  ? 
Is  it  Charles  that  is  before  us ;  the  friend  of  Buckingham  ; 
the  patron  of  Laud  ;  the  opponent  of  Hampden  ;  the  corrupt- 
er,  the  encourager,  the  deserter  of  Strafford  ;  the  dissolver  of 
parliaments  ;  the  imposer  of  liturgies  ;  the  violater  of  privi- 
leges ?  These  are  images  of  the  past  no  longer  to  be  recalled  ; 
these  are  characters  of  offence  with  which  he  has  now  no  con- 
cern. It  is  the  monarch  unsubdued  by  adversity  ;  it  is  the 
hero  unappalled  by  death  ;  it  is  the  Christian  sublimed  by  piety 
and  hope  ;  it  is  these  that  occupy  our  imagination  and  mem- 
ory. It  is  the  tribunal  of  violence,  it  is  the  scaffold  of  blood, 
that  banish  from  our  minds  all  indignation  but  against  his  de- 
stroyers ;  all  terrors  but  of  the  licentiousness  of  the  people  ; 
that  render  all  regular  estimation  of  his  character  odious  and 
impossible  ;  and  that  leave  nothing  in  the  heart  of  the  gener- 
ous and  humane,  but  compassion  for  his  misfortunes,  and  rev- 
erence for  his  virtues. 

Sentiments  like  these,  so  natural  at  any  period,  so  powerful 
at  the  time  as  to  have  produced  almost  his  deification,  it  is  not 
the  province  of  true  philosophy  to  destroy,  but  rather  to  tem- 
per and  enlighten. 

It  is  turning  history  to  no  adequate  purpose,  if  we  do  not 
accept  the  instruction  which  it  offers.  The  lives  and  actions 
of  men  have  been  in  vain  exhibited  to  our  view,  if  we  make 
not  our  moral  criticisms,  even  when  to  make  them  is  a  task 
painful  and  repulsive  to  our  nature.  The  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  must  be  remembered  as  well  as  the  close  ; 
the  obscure  as  well  as  the  brighter  parts  of  his  imperfect  char- 
acter. His  faults  should  be  studied,  that  there  never  may  again 
be  a  necessity  for  the  display  of  his  virtues.  Those  faults 
were  the  faults  of  all  those  sovereigns  who,  though  men  of 


404  LECTURE  XVI. 

principle,  have  involved  themselves  and  their  country  in  ca- 
lamities. Such  sovereigns  have  always  wanted,  as  did  Charles, 
that  simplicity  and  steadiness  which  could  afford  good  men 
the  means  of  understanding  and  depending  upon  their  con- 
duct ;  that  enlightened  benevolence  which  could  make  them 
think  more  of  their  people  than  of  themselves  ;  that  magna- 
nimity which  might  enable  them  to  call  to  their  councils 
statesmen  who  would  announce  to  them  the  real  sentiments 
of  the  community,  not  echo  and  confirm  their  own  ;  and  last- 
ly, and  above  all,  that  political  sagacity,  which  could  discern 
the  signs  of  the  times,  the  new  opinions  that  had  arisen, 
and  which  could  draw  forth,  with  equal  wisdom  and  be- 
nevolence, such  principles  of  improvement  as  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  country  contained,  and  adapting  them  according 
to  the  justice  of  the  case,  ere  it  was  too  late,  to  the  ever 
shifting  scene  before  them,  save  the  state  and  themselves  alike 
from  the  fury  of  the  passions  of  the  people,  and  the  treachery 
of  their  own. 

At  the  conclusion  of  these  remarks  on  the  contest  between 
Charles  and  his  parliaments,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  observe, 
that  there  are  two  mistakes  which  are  continually  made, 
though  it  is  not  very  intelligible  how  they  can  be  made 
by  those,  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  history  of  these 
times.  First,  the  execution  of  Charles  is  always  reasoned 
upon  as  if  it  had  received  the  sanction  of  a  regular  par- 
liament ;  as  if  it  had  been  a  great  national  act  ;  but  nothing 
can  be  further  from  the  truth.  On  the  4th  of  the  preceding 
December  (the  king  was  executed  on  the  30th  of  January), 
there  were  present  in  the  house,  as  Mr.  Prynne  informs  us, 
three  hundred  and  forty  members.  Two  days  after,  Cromwell 
and  his  soldiers  expelled  nearly  a  hundred,  and  imprisoned 
nearly  fifty  ;  so  that  the  next  day,  such  was  the  general  terror, 
only  seventy-three  met  ;  and  after  that  day  never  more  than 
fifty-three.  It  was  by  this  inconsiderable  part  of  a  house,  to 
which  more  than  five  hundred  members  originally  belonged, 
that  all  the  outrageous  proceedings  against  the  king  and  the 
constitution  of  the  country  were  resolved  upon,  and  never 
more  than  fifty-three  members  could  be  collected  ;  not  more 
than  forty  members  of  the  house  signed  the  death-warrant  of 
Charles.  Only  fifty-eight  commissioners  could  be  brought  to 


CIVIL  WAR.  405 

sign  it,  out  of  a  court  consisting  of  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty.  Of  these  one  hundred  and  fifty,  not  more  than  seventy 
could  ever  be  brought  to  sit,  though  recourse  was  had  to  the 
officers  of  the  army,  and  though  the  country  had  been  for  five 
years  inured  to  all  the  disorders  of  a  civil  war,  and  to  the  influ- 
ence of  every  passion  and  every  principle  of  civil  and  reli- 
gious hate,  that  can  render  men  barbarous  and  unjust  ;  only 
seventy  could  be  found  capable  of  acting.  In  the  House  of 
Lords,  not  a  single  peer  could  be  found  to  countenance  these 
proceedings  of  the  soldiery  ;  and  the  assembly  expired  with 
their  sovereign. 

The  second  mistake  which  has  been  made  with  respect  to 
these  extraordinary  times  is  more  excusable.  The  Presbyteri- 
ans have  been  always  accused  as  the  destroyers  of  the  mon- 
archy. This  is  not  accurate  ;  the  long  parliament  originally  con- 
sisted of  five  hundred  and  thirty-four  members  ;  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  of  them  (Hyde  one  of  them)  left  the  house,  and 
repaired  to  the  king  at  Oxford.  On  the  whole,  in  the  progress 
of  the  dispute,  two  hundred  out  of  the  original  five  hundred  and 
thirty-four  were  disabled,  and  new  writs  issued.  Those  that 
remained  must  have,  therefore,  been  all  Presbyterians  and  In- 
dependents almost  to  a  man. 

Now,  from  all  the  speeches,  and  proceedings,  and  memoirs 
of  the  times,  it  appears,  that  these  two  parties  continued  in  the 
house  almost  to  the  last,  and  that  the  former  at  least,  the  Pres- 
byterians, though  they  were  resolved  to  have  the  Episcopal 
form  of  church  government  altered,  never  had  the  least  inten- 
tion of  abolishing  the  monarchy.  A  king,  limited  by  law,  and 
a  church  without  bishops,  these  were  their  objects,  and  no 
other.  More  than  half  a  year  before  the  execution  of  the  king, 
the  leading  Presbyterian  members  of  the  house,  eleven  in  num- 
ber, the  famous  Holies  at  their  head,  men  that  had  been  the 
most  distinguished  through  the  whole  of  the  contest,  were  im- 
peached, and,  in  fact,  driven  from  the  house  by  the  menaces  of 
the  soldiery  and  the  Independent  party.  They  had  been  found 
in  the  way  when  designs  of  violence  and  usurpation  began  to  be 
entertained. 

The  speech  of  Prynne,  to  which  I  have  alluded,  delivered 
only  two  months  before  the  execution  of  the  king,  shows  clearly 
what  were  the  sentiments  of  the  Presbyterians  to  the  last.  He 
was  one  of  them. 


406  LECTURE   XVI. 

In  Scotland,  a  large  part  of  the  Presbyterians  appeared  in 
arms,  and  resolved  to  march  into  England  against  the  army  in 
defence  of  the  parliament  and  the  royal  cause.  If  the  king 
could  have  subscribed  the  covenant,  the  whole  of  that  part  of 
the  island  would  have  united  in  his  favor. 

The  Memoirs  of  Holies  are  very  decisive  on  this  point,  par- 
ticularly at  the  close.  They  are  worth  reading,  are  not  long, 
and  strongly  paint  the  rage  and  disappointment  of  a  man  of  abil- 
ity and  principle,  at  seeing  his  party  (the  Presbyterian  party) 
overpowered  by  men  of  hypocrisy  and  blood,  like  Cromwell 
and  his  associates  ;  and  the  labors  of  his  own  life  thus  ending 
in  total  despair. 

It  is  in  this  book,  that  there  is  the  remarkable  charge  brought 
against  Cromwell  of  cowardice.  Holies  was  one  of  the  mem- 
bers who  had  forcibly  held  the  speaker  in  the  chair  in  the  year 
1628  ;  and,  in  1641,  was  one  of  the  five  members  whom  the 
king  had  meant  to  arrest,  when  he  so  unhappily  entered  the 
house  for  the  purpose. 

Even  Walker,  in  his  History  of  Independency,  though  in- 
dulging himself  in  the  most  unlimited  censures  of  both  parties  as 
to  money  concerns,  speaks  of  the  Independents  (page  200, 
part  ii.)  as  men  who  carried  on  war  against  the  king  with  an 
intent,  from  the  beginning,  to  pull  down  monarchy,  and  set  up 
anarchy  ;  u  notwithstanding  (continues  he)  the  many  declara- 
tions, remonstrances,  abortive  treaties,  protestations,  and  cove- 
nants, which  were  obligations  from  time  to  time  extorted  from 
them  by  the  Presbyterians." 

The  accusation,  therefore,  of  the  Presbyterians  seems  to  be, 
not  that  they  intended  to  overthrow  the  monarchy,  but  that 
they  committed  political  mistakes  which  enabled  others  to  do 
so.  Their  fault  seems  rather  to  have  been  of  a  religious 
nature  ;  their  terror  of  popery,  their  hatred  of  bishops,  their 
religious  intolerance,  carried,  indeed,  to  a  most  senseless  and 
disgusting  excess.  Much  of  this  blame  must,  however,  be 
shared  by  the  king  himself  :  and  if  his  intolerance  was  more 
pardonable,  because  episcopacy  was  already  established,  and 
because  his  religious  persuasions  were  not  debased  by  cant 
and  grimace,  and  were  of  a  more  liberal  and  sober  nature,  still 
his  political  mistakes  were  far  greater  than  those  of  the  Presby- 
terians ;  and  both  his  religious  and  political  mistakes  (which  is 
a  most  important  point),  were  prior  in  order  of  time. 


CIVIL  WAR.  407 

The  most  violent  philippics  that  ever  appeared  against  this 
party  may  be  found  in  the  prose  works  of  Milton.  The  invec- 
tives of  this  great  poet  against  prelates  and  Presbyterians  will 
perfectly  astonish  those,  who  as  yet  are  only  conversant  with 
his  immortal  work,  his  descriptions  of  the  Garden  of  Eden, 
and  the  piety  and  innocence  of  our  first  parents. 

This  period  of  the  civil  wars,  —  the  most  interesting  in  our 
history,  —  has  given  occasion  to  so  many  publications,  that 
there  is  some  danger  lest  the  student  should  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  extent  and  variety  of  his  materials.  In  Rushworth  he 
will  find  an  inexhaustible  collection  of  important  documents. 
These  should  be  consulted,  and  compared  with  the  collection 
of  Nalson,  who  professes  to  correct  his  faults.  The  Works  of 
King  Charles,  published  by  Royston,  should  be  looked  at,  par- 
ticularly the  king's  letters  taken  at  Naseby.  When  any  doubt 
is  entertained  of  the  conduct  of  Charles,  Mrs.  Macauley  may  be 
referred  to  :  and  a  charge  against  him,  if  it  can  possibly  be 
made  out,  will  assuredly  be  found ;  and  supported  with  all  the 
references  that  the  most  animated  diligence  can  supply.  These 
may  be  compared  with  the  representations  of  Clarendon,  and 
his  defenders. 

A  general  summary  of  the  particulars  of  this  reign,  not  very 
favorable  to  the  king,  will  be  found  in  Harris's  Life  of  Charles 
the  First.  Harris  fortifies  the  positions  in  his  text,  like  Bayle, 
by  copious  notes,  which  will,  at  least,  bring  the  subject,  and 
all  the  learning  that  belongs  to  it,  in  full  review  before  the  read- 
er. There  is  a  History  of  the  Long  Parliament,  by  May, 
which  is  not  without  its  value,  though  from  the  shortness  of  the 
period  which  it  embraces,  and  the  cold  and  general  manner  in 
which  it  is  written,  it  will  disappoint  the  reader,  who  might 
naturally  expect  much  more  curious  matter  from  one  who  was 
secretary  to  the  house,  and  wrote  from  the  midst  of  such  un- 
precedented scenes. 

Clarendon  is  always  interesting,  and  continually  provides  ma- 
terials for  the  statesman  and  the  philosopher.  He  is  partial,  no 
doubt ;  but,  as  it  has  been  well  observed  by  Lord  Grenville, 
in  his  Preface  to  the  late  Lord  Chatham's  Letters  (a  preface 
which  is  worth  reading,  even  with  a  reference  to  our  present 
subject),  the  partiality  of  one  who  means  to  tell  the  truth,  will 
always  be  distinguishable  from  his,  who  means  to  deceive. 


408  LECTURE  XVI. 

The  Memoirs  of  Holies  I  have  already  mentioned  ;  and  the 
History  of  Independency,  by  Walker,  should  be  looked  into. 
But  books  like  these  two  last  cannot  be  at  all  understood,  unless 
a  knowledge  of  the  history  has  previously  been  obtained. 

Whitelocke's  Journal  is  a  collection  of  facts,  with  occasional 
disquisitions,  very  short  and  very  few,  but  always  very  interest- 
ing and  important.  It  must,  by  all  means,  be  looked  over  in 
conjunction  with  the  more  regular  narrative  of  other  historians. 

On  the  whole,  with  regard  to  books,  I  may  say,  that  the  par- 
liamentary history,  or  Cobbett's  edition  of  it,  should  form  the 
groundwork  of  the  student's  perusal ;  and  that  this,  with  the 
explanations  and  comments  of  Hume  and  Clarendon  on  the  one 
side,  and  Millar  and  Rapin  on  the  other,  will  leave  him  little 
further  to  seek,  if  he  will  but  sufficiently  meditate  on  the  mate- 
rials thus  supplied  to  his  reflections.  Rapin  is  always  full  and 
valuable,  and  a  sort  of  substitute  in  the  absence  of  all  other 
writers. 

Finally,  I  must  remind  you,  that  I  have  already  mentioned 
the  great  work  of  Mr.  Hallam,  and  the  very  important  Memoirs 
of  Charles  the  First  by  Miss  Aikin.  These  lectures  were 
written  many  years  ago,  but  I  have  thus  been  enabled,  I  hope, 
the  better  to  estimate  the  interest  and  value  of  these  late  pub- 
lications. 

When  the  king  had  perished  on  the  scaffold,  the  Indepen- 
dents and  the  army  alone  remained  to  triumph.  All  other  par- 
ties, the  royalists  and  moderate  patriots,  with  Lord  Falkland 
and  Hyde  ;  the  Presbyterians,  with  Holies,  had  been  swept 
away  from  the  field. 

We  are  now,  therefore,  to  observe  what  was  the  conduct  of 
the  Independents,  and  what  of  Cromwell  and  the  army. 

Those  of  the  Independents  who  were  not  mere  wild  or  driv- 
elling fanatics,  were  Republicans,  like  Ludlow  and  Hutchin- 
son  ;  and  it  was  now  their  business  to  establish  their  Common- 
wealth. 

Hume  accuses  them  of  wanting  that  deep  thought,  and  those 
comprehensive  views,  which  might  qualify  them  for  acting  the 
part  of  legislators.  This  may  be  true. 

But  it  seems  impossible,  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  to 
propose  any  system  of  conduct  which  could  have  enabled  them 
to  carry  their  political  theories  into  execution.  They  were 


CIVIL  WAR.  409 

now  at  last  to  pay  themselves  the  penalty  of  all  their  violence 
and  enthusiasm. 

The  great  difficulty  which  the  Presbyterians  had  not  been 
able  to  overcome,  remained,  —  the  army,  —  a  difficulty  now 
equally  invincible  to  the  Republicans. 

A  general  like  Cromwell,  and  men  like  his  soldiers,  were 
not  likely  to  acquiesce  in  any  system  of  government  which 
materially  abridged  their  power  ;  and,  unless  their  power  was 
abridged,  there  could  be  no  peace,  or  security  for  the  subject, 
under  any  form  of  government,  monarchical  or  republican. 

The  Republicans  were  themselves  only  the  last  residue  of 
the  long  parliament  ;  the  sole  expedient,  therefore,  that  offer- 
ed, was  the  dissolution  of  this  remaining  garbled  part,  and  the 
calling  a  new  one,  fully  and  regularly  chosen.  Such  a  parlia- 
ment might  have  been  considered  as  a  fair  indication  of  the 
public  wilL 

But  this  could  not  be  attempted  for  some  time,  after  so 
enormous  an  act  of  violence  as  the  king's  execution  ;  and 
whenever  attempted,  it  must  have  appeared  to  the  Republi- 
cans a  measure  very  doubtful  in  its  success,  and  likely  to  have 
filled  the  house  with  a  large  majority  of  concealed  Royalists 
and  exasperated  Presbyterians  ;  neither  of  whom  would  have 
tolerated  the  Independents  or  the  republic  ;  they  therefore 
temporized,  and  waited  to  avail  themselves  of  the  chance  of 
events. 

But  this  conduct,  though  natural,  was,  after  all,  neither  just 
nor  prudent. 

It  was  not  just  ;  for  if  the  political  opinions  of  the  nation 
were  against  their  republic,  they  had  no  right  to  endeavour  to 
establish  it,  whether  by  force  or  by  contrivance. 

It  was  not  prudent  ;  for  Cromwell  had  already  shown  him- 
self to  be  a  far  greater  master  of  the  art  of  managing  events, 
than  they  could  possibly  be ;  and  none  but  the  most  contempt- 
ible enthusiasts  could  be  now  ignorant,  that  his  hypocrisy  was 
unceasing,  his  influence  with  the  army  unbounded,  and  his 
views  ambitious. 

The  only  possible  mode,  therefore,  of  controlling  his  con- 
duct, or  favorably  influencing  his  designs,  was  the  summoning 
of  a  regular  parliament,  which  might  attract  the  respect  of 
every  man  of  principle  in  the  army  and  in  the  kingdom. 

VOL.   i.  52 


410  LECTURE  XVI. 

It  is  true,  that  even  this  measure  might  not  have  answered 
to  the  views  of  the  Republicans,  but  it  was  their  only  chance. 

To  remain  as  they  were,  the  last  remnant  that  military  vio- 
lence had  spared,  and  therefore  respected  by  no  party  ;  to 
remain,  ready  to  be  overthrown  at  the  first  difference  that 
arose  between  themselves  and  the  army,  was  certain  destruc- 
tion. 

In  this  state,  however,  the  parliament  did  remain  during  the 
first  year  of  their  administration,  —  1648. 

In  1649,  Cromwell  and  the  army  were  employed  in  Ire- 
land ;  in  1650,  against  the  Scotch  Presbyterians,  who  had 
made  a  very  injudicious  attempt  to  restore  royalty,  or  rather 
the  covenant  and  royalty  ;  and  had  persuaded  the  young  king 
(afterwards  Charles  the  Second)  to  commit  himself,  very 
thoughtlessly,  to  the  disposal  of  their  intolerance  and  fanat- 
icism. In  both  these  campaigns  Cromwell  and  the  army  were 
victorious.  In  1651,  the  young  king  was  defeated  at  Worces- 
ter. This  defeat  of  his  enemy  was  what  Cromwell  declared 
to  be  the  last  crowning  mercy  of  the  Lord  ;  that  is,  it  was  the 
finishing  step  to  his  own  power,  and  the  cause  of  the  Repub- 
licans was  now  more  than  ever  hopeless. 

They  seem  to  have  had  an  opportunity  in  1649,  when 
Cromwell  was  in  Ireland,  to  have  made  some  effort  for  the 
establishment  of  their  civil  authority,  but  they  lost  it.  In  the 
mean  time,  petitions  with  respect  to  the  settlement  of  the 
nation  were  continually  presented  to  them  :  instead  of  attend- 
ing, however,  to  the  public  expectations,  and  the  duties  of 
their  situation,  they  contented  themselves  with  returning,  like 
other  unwise  governments,  sometimes  menaces,  punishments, 
and  statutes  of  high  treason,  sometimes  plausible  answers  to 
gain  time,  and  occasionally  debating  the  question  of  their  dis- 
solution, and  of  a  new  representation  ;  but,  on  the  whole, 
coming  to  no  decision  on  the  subject,  while  it  was  their  best 
policy  to  do  so.  When  at  last  they  did  come  to  a  vote,  in 
November,  1651,  after  the  power  of  Cromwell  was  finally 
established,  their  resolution  only  was,  "  that  they  would  dis- 
solve themselves  three  years  afterwards,  in  1654  ;"  a  resolu- 
tion that  could  satisfy  no  one,  but  much  the  contrary. 

They  had,  therefore,  not  chosen  to  make  a  common  cause 
with  the  public,  and  being  thus  without  support  from  within 


CIVIL  WAR.  411 

and  from  without,  Cromwell  took  a  few  soldiers  with  him,  ex- 
pelled them  from  the  House,  and  locked  up  the  doors  of  it,  as 
soon  as  he  found  them  an  encumbrance  to  his  ambition.  He 
first,  indeed,  acquainted  them,  u  that  the  Lord  had  done  with 
them." 

The  public,  who  never  favor  those  who  have  no  visible  merits 
to  produce,  still  less  those  who  have  seemed  attentive  chiefly  to 
their  own  selfish  interests,  saw  this  new  act  of  military  violence 
with  indifference,  and  probably  with  pleasure. 

Certainly  these  Republicans,  after  a  trial  of  three  years,  had 
entirely  failed  as  politicians  and  had  established  no  republic. 

But  they  had  great  merits  in  endeavouring  to  introduce  im- 
provements into  the  law.  The  laudable  efforts  of  the  long 
parliament  on  this  subject  have  never  been  properly  acknowl- 
edged. The  state  of  all  the  real  landed  property  of  this  king- 
dom is,  at  this  moment,  materially  influenced  by  the  happy  effect 
of  their  legislative  provisions  ;  and  those  men  of  property  who 
inquire,  will  find,  that  their  estates  have  been  as  much  indebted, 
as  themselves,  to  these  parliamentary  leaders,  for  any  freedom 
that  belongs  to  them  ;  both  the  one  and  the  other  were  eman- 
cipated from  feudal  manacles. 

Cromwell  now  alone  remained,  supreme  and  unresisted  ;  and 
thus  at  length  terminated,  in  the  usurpation  of  a  military  chief, 
the  original  struggle  between  the  king  and  parliament. 

And  this,  as  I  have  already  announced  at  the  beginning  of 
this  lecture,  has  been  always  considered  as  the  necessary  issue 
of  any  successful  appeal  to  arms  on  the  part  of  the  people  ;  a 
position  to  which  I  do  not  indiscriminately  assent,  and  on  which 
I  shall,  therefore,  offer  some  observations  in  my  next  lecture. 


LECTURE    XVII. 

CROMWELL.  —  MONK.  —  REGICIDES. 

TOWARDS  the  conclusion  of  my  last  lecture,  we  had  ar- 
rived at  the  usurpation  of  Cromwell  ;  and  this  usurpation  of  a 
military  chief,  I  then  observed,  has  been  always  considered  as 
the  natural  issue  of  any  successful  appeal  to  arms  on  the  part  of 
the  people. 

This  position,  it  appears  to  me,  has  been  always  laid  down 
too  broadly  and  indiscriminately.  The  question  seems  to  ad- 
mit of  a  distinction,  and  it  is  this  :  — 

If  a  people  have  been  long  subject  to  all  the  evils  of  an 
arbitrary  government,  and  at  last  break  out  into  insurrection, 
it  is  to  be  expected,  no  doubt,  that  the  last  favorite  of  the 
army,  who  survives  the  contest,  will  gradually  procure  for 
himself  the  power  which  the  former  sovereigns  had  abused 
and  lost.  There  is  no  material  shock  here  given  to  those  hab- 
its of  thinking  and  feeling,  which,  notwithstanding  all  the  in- 
termediate troubles,  must  still  form  the  genuine  character  of 
the  great  body  of  the  nation  ;  but  the  case  is  materially  altered, 
if  we  suppose  a  people,  before,  possessed  of  constitutional 
rights,  and  endeavouring  to  defend  or  enlarge  them,  in  opposi- 
tion to  those  who  would  limit  or  destroy  them.  Here  the 
event,  if  the  popular  party  succeed,  seems  more  naturally  to  be, 
the  ultimate  strengthening  and  enlarging  of  the  prior  constitu- 
tional privileges,  under  some  form  of  government  similar  to  the 
former  one. 

In  this  case  a  usurpation  is  either  not  attempted,  as  in  the 
instances  of  Switzerland  and  Holland,  and,  in  our  own  times, 
of  America,  or,  if  attempted,  the  usurper  finds  himself  im- 
peded with  such  political  difficulties,  at  every  movement 
which  he  makes,  that  the  continuance  of  his  power  is  always 


CROMWELL.  413 

a  matter  of  uncertainty  ;  and  the  original  and  irremediable 
disposition  of  the  people,  the  result  of  their  former  better  gov- 
ernment, is  sure  at  last  to  prevail,  either  over  himself,  or  over 
his  successors. 

In  illustration  of  this  general  reasoning,  may  be  cited  the 
difficulties  which  Cromwell  had  to  overcome,  while  he  was  en- 
deavouring to  seize  the  power  of  the  state,  and  still  more  while 
he  was  laboring  to  retain  it. 

1  will  give  a  general  representation  of  them.  Together 
they  form  a  strong  testimony  to  the  permanent  nature  of  the 
English  mixed  constitution,  particularly  of  the  monarchical 
part  of  it  ;  and  they  go  far  to  prove  that  the  usurpation  of 
Cromwell  was  not,  as  has  been  generally  supposed,  a  success- 
ful one. 

These  are  the  principal  topics  of  reflection  to  which  I  would 
at  present  wish  to  excite  your  attention.  Hume  and  Millar, 
and  the  regular  historians  and  writers,  will  supply  you  with 
many  others. 

Cromwell  had  to  subdue,  not  only  the  royalists,  but  the 
Presbyterians  ;  and  this,  not  merely  by  force,  but  by  the  most 
extraordinary  performances  of  cant  and  hypocrisy  that  human 
nature  ever  yet  exhibited. 

But  why  ?  Because  these  descriptions  of  men  bore  fresh 
upon  their  minds  the  impression  of  the  constitution  of  England, 
and  were  only  solicitous,  according  to  the  best  of  their  judg- 
ment, to  support  or  improve  that  constitution. 

By  the  same  arts  and  means  were  the  Independents,  the 
Republicans,  to  be  overpowered  by  the  usurper,  and  for  the 
some  reason.  They  too  were  impressed  with  the  original 
stamp  which  had  been  received  from  the  popular  part  of  this 
constitution  ;  and  they  had  only  deviated  from  it  because  they 
thought  that  the  monarchical  part  had  been  found,  from  trial, 
incompatible  with  the  interests  of  the  country. 

That  a  military  usurper,  that  any  single  person  should  rule, 
was  not  in  the  contemplation  or  wishes,  probably,  of  any  one 
disinterested  Englishman  at  the  time. 

And  it  is  here  that  may  be  found  the  great  proof  of  the 
talents  of  Cromwell,  which  is  not  only,  as  Mr.  Hume  states, 
that  he  could  rise  from  a  private  station  to  a  high  authority  in 
the  army  ;  but  still  more,  that  he  could  afterwards  bend  the 


414  LECTURE  XVII. 

refractory  spirits,  and  direct  the  disordered  understandings  of 
all  around  him,  to  the  purposes  of  his  own  ambition,  to  the 
elevation  of  himself  to  the  protectorate,  in  violation  of  all  his 
former  professions  and  protestations,  public  and  private,  and  in 
defiance  of  all  the  men  of  principle  and  intrepidity,  who  had 
been  so  long  his  associates  and  friends  in  the  parliament  and  in 
the  army. 

The  gross  and  ignorant  soldiers  might,  indeed,  be  well  con- 
tent, that  he  who  gave  them  pay  and  plunder  should  have 
every  thing  to  dispose  of ;  and  in  their  idolatry  of  a  successful 
general,  they  might,  for  a  time,  forget  their  country,  and  those 
forms  of  established  authority  to  which  they  had  once  been  ac- 
customed. But  still,  it  was  these  coarse  and  brute  instruments 
upon  which  Cromwell  could  alone  depend  ;  and,  after  all,  as 
the  mass  of  an  army  must  always  be  managed  through  the  me- 
dium of  its  officers,  it  was  here  (in  this  management  of  the 
officers)  that  his  extraordinary  powers  were  exhibited  in  a  man- 
ner so  striking.  Some  he  could  make  his  creatures  by  mere 
bribery,  by  lucrative  posts  and  expectations  :  but  the  rest,  and 
not  unfrequently  many  of  the  common  soldiers  themselves,  he 
was  obliged  to  cajole,  by  every  art  and  labor  of  hypocrisy  ;  to 
surround  and  bewilder  them  with  a  tempest  of  fanaticism,  of 
sighs  and  prayers,  of  groans  and  ejaculations  ;  in  short,  to  ele- 
vate and  involve  his  heroes  and  himself  in  a  cloud,  till  he  was 
able  there  to  leave  them,  and  himself  to  descend  and  take  un- 
disturbed possession  of  the  earth. 

Whoever  reads  the  history  of  these  times,  cannot  well  believe 
that  this  military  usurper,  daring  and  powerful  as  his  abilities 
were,  both  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  field,  could  possibly  have 
succeeded,  if  the  religious  principle  had  not  unfortunately 
found  its  way  into  every  part  of  the  dispute  between  the  king 
and  his  people,  and  so  disturbed  the  natural  tendency  of  things, 
as  to  render  any  achievement  practicable,  which  could  well  be 
conceived  by  a  man  of  military  skill  and  fanaticism  united. 
But  observe  his  progress. 

When  the  young  king  had  been  finally  defeated  at  Wor- 
cester, when  the  Republicans  had  been  turned  out  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  when  Cromwell,  with  his  council  of 
officers,  was  left  alone  on  the  stage,  and  when  it  would  gener- 
ally be  said,  that  the  natural  termination  of  the  contest  had 


CROMWELL.  415 

arrived,  and  Cromwell  had  now  only  to  enjoy  what  he  had  ac- 
quired ;  his  difficulties  on  the  contrary,  seemed  rather  to  multi- 
ply than  to  cease.  Cromwell,  though  triumphant,  and  without 
a  rival,  could  never  be  at  ease,  and  he  was  continually  laboring  to 
make  his  government  approach,  as  much  as  possible,  to  the 
model  of  the  old  one,  and  to  those  forms  which  he  knew  could 
alone  be  considered  as  legitimate. 

He  was  now  himself  precisely  in  the  situation  in  which  the 
Independents  (the  Republicans)  had  lately  been.  He,  like 
them,  durst  not  appeal  to  a  full  and  fair  representation  of  the 
people,  yet  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  parliament  ;  he  could  not 
otherwise  color  his  usurpation  ;  he  therefore  proceeded  to  man- 
ufacture one  with  all  expedition. 

But  as  he  had  violated  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  every  man 
of  principle  and  consideration,  he  could  trust  no  one  who  pos- 
sessed much  of  either  ;  and  his  parliament  contained,  though 
with  a  mixture  of  others  of  a  superior  class,  men  of  low  con- 
dition and  foolish  fanaticism. 

The  parliament  which  he  collected  and  made  was  the  parlia- 
ment known  by  the  ludicrous  appellations,  which  were  gravely 
assumed  by  many  of  its  members,  u  Praise  God  Barebones," 
&c.  &c. 

These  creatures  he  seems  to  have  let  loose  upon  the  courts 
of  law,  probably  for  the  sake  of  terrifying  the  lawyers.  Courts 
of  law  are  never  very  popular  with  the  vulgar  ;  and,  therefore, 
senators  like  these  soon  proceeded  to  the  attack  of  the  Court 
of  Chancery  nem.  con.  If  you  look  into  Cobbett,  their  lan- 
guage will  amuse  you.  They  showed  a  rapidity  of  move- 
ment which  must  have  appeared  not  a  little  marvellous  to  the 
court  itself ;  certainly  the  court  could  not  have  been  taught 
to  comprehend  it  from  any  experience  in  its  own  proceed- 
ings. 

But  a  parliament  of  this  kind,  so  little  fitted  to  be  a  part  of  an 
English  government,  was  found  by  Cromwell,  after  a  few- 
months'  trial,  unfit  to  answer  his  purposes  ;  so  their  power  was 
partly  resigned,  and  partly  taken  from  them,  and  they  returned 
to  their  more  natural  occupations  in  private  life. 

Still  a  parliament  and  a  constitutional  government  of  some 
kind  or  other  ,was  necessary.  Cromwell,  therefore,  and  his 
council  of  officers  drew  up  an  instrument  of  government,  spread 


416  LECTURE  XVII. 

the  power  of  representation  over  the  whole  of  England  and 
Wales  very  fairly,  and  began  again. 

Even  in  this  instrument  it  is  observable  that  the  supreme 
legislative  authority  is  made  to  reside  in  one  person  and  in 
the  people,  assembled  in  parliament  ;  that  is,  in  a  king  and 
House  of  Commons  ;  and  that  the  provisions  are  far  more  un- 
favorable to  the  executive  power  than  those  in  the  English  con- 
stitution, with  one  exception.  This  exception  is  contained  in 
those  articles  on  which,  no  doubt,  Cromwell  depended  for  his 
own  protection,  the  twenty-seventh  and  three  following.  These 
provided  for  the  maintenance  of  a  standing  military  force  of  ten 
thousand  horse  and  twenty  thousand  foot.  The  powers,  how- 
ever, that  were  given  to  the  parliament  might  soon  have  been 
converted  to  the  destruction  of  any  protector  who  was  not  a 
favorite  with  the  army. 

Three  hundred  members  assembled,  and  Cromwell  was  soon 
obliged,  on  account  of  the  freedom  of  their  debates,  to  make 
them  a  long  harangue,  and  to  declare  that,  "  after  seeking 
counsel  from  God,  he  must  prescribe  to  them  a  test  to  sign." 
The  debates  still  continued  disagreeable  to  him.  At  length, 
after  the  manner  of  the  very  king  whom  he  had  dethroned,  he 
dissolved  them. 

After  an  interval  of  two  years  and  a  half,  he  still  thought  it 
expedient  to  call  once  more  a  parliament  (the  third)  ;  and  every 
effort  was  made  to  pack  together  an  assembly  devoted  to  his 
designs  :  but  all  in  vain.  He  had  to  deny  particular  members 
admittance,  was  resisted  by  a  large  portion  of  the  house,  as- 
sailed by  a  spirited  remonstrance,  and  felt  in  his  turn,  like  his 
misguided  master,  that  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  sufficient  counte- 
nance to  illegal  proceedings  from  any  tolerable  representation  of 
the  people  of  England. 

Still  anxious  and  dissatisfied,  still  desirous  to  rest  his  author- 
ity upon  some  established  principle,  he  meditated  the  assump- 
tion of  the  title  of  king. 

He  got  the  affair  put  in  motion  in  the  house.  The  law- 
yers told  him,  and  probably  with  great  sincerity,  that  this 
title  of  king,  to  use  their  own  words,  was  a  wheel  upon  which 
the  whole  body  of  the  law  was  carried  :  that  it  stood  not  on 
the  top,  but  run  through  the  whole  veins  and  life  of  the  law  ; 
that  the  nation  had  ever  been  a  lover  of  monarchy,  and  of 


REGICIDES.  433 

warfare  ;  an  indirect  proof,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  con- 
stitution had  not  been  of  the  arbitrary  nature  that  was  by  some 
supposed. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  and  there  has  been 
lately  published  a  work  on  this  subject  by  Mr.  Godwin.  It 
should  by  all  means  be  read  ;  it  is  always  interesting,  and 
sometimes  contains  anecdotes  and  passages  that  are  curious  and 
striking.  Godwin  is  always  a  powerful  writer,  and,  above  all, 
it  is  the  statement  of  the  case  of  the  Republicans. 

But  on  the  whole,  in  these  volumes  of  Godwin  there  is  no 
sufficient  intimation  given  of  the  religious  hypocrisy  and  cant 
of  the  Presbyterians  first,  or  of  the  Independents  and  Crom- 
well after.  The  history  is  an  effort  in  favor  of  the  Republi- 
cans of  those  times,  founded  on  the  paramount  merit  of  a  re- 
public at  all  times.  It  is  also  very  nearly  a  panegyric  of  Crom- 
well ;  certainly  so,  as  far  as  regard  for  the  Republicans  ad- 
mitted. 

From  these  pages  it  may  be  collected  that  Charles  was  never 
sincere  ;  that  is,  would  never  have  adhered  to  any  engagements 
if  he  could  have  helped  it :  that  the  Presbyterians  sacrificed 
every  thing  to  their  hatred  of  Episcopacy,  as  Charles  did  to 
his  -love  of  it :  that  the  English  nation  was  never  sufficiently 
Republican  for  the  purposes  of  the  Independents  ;  afterwards, 
that  Cromwell  could  never  manage  Royalists,  Presbyterians, 
and  Republicans,  all  of  whom  united  against  him. 

It  is  not  sufficiently  shown  how  Cromwell  contrived  to  man- 
age those  whom  he  did  manage  :  all  is  made  to  depend  on  his 
personal  powers  of  persuasion  ;  but  it  is  plain  that  his  was  an 
unsuccessful  usurpation  after  all. 


END  OF   VOL.  I. 


VOL.  i.  55 


YC  36976 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


